( ) is a multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan
, and one of the world's largest media conglomerates with revenue exceeding ¥ 7.730.0 trillion, or $78.88 billion U.S. (FY2008). Sony is one of the leading manufacturers of electronics, video, communications, video game consoles, and information technology products for the consumer and professional markets. Its name is derived from sonus, the Latin word for sound.
Sony Corporation is the electronics business unit and the parent
company of the
Sony Group, which is
engaged in business through its five operating
segments—electronics, games, entertainment (motion pictures and
music), financial services and other. These make Sony one of the
most comprehensive entertainment companies in the world. Sony's
principal business operations include Sony Corporation (
Sony Electronics in the U.S.),
Sony Pictures Entertainment,
Sony Computer
Entertainment,
Sony Music
Entertainment,
Sony Ericsson, and
Sony Financial. As a semiconductor
maker, Sony is among the
Worldwide Top 20
Semiconductor Sales Leaders. The company's current slogan is
make.believe.
History
In late
1945, after World War II, Masaru Ibuka started a radio repair shop in a bomb-damaged department store
building in Nihonbashi
of Tokyo. The next year, he was joined by
his colleague
Akio Morita and they
founded a company called Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo K.K., which translates
in English to Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation. The
company built Japan's first
tape
recorder called the Type-G.
In the
early 1950s, Ibuka traveled in the United States
and heard about Bell Labs
' invention of the transistor. He convinced Bell to license
the transistor technology to his Japanese company. While most
American companies were researching the transistor for its military
applications, Ibuka and Morita looked to apply it to
communications.
Although the American companies Regency and
Texas
Instruments
built the
first transistor radios, it was Ibuka's company that made them
commercially successful for the first time.In August 1955,
Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering released the Sony
TR-55, Japan's first commercially produced
transistor radio.
They followed up in
December of the same year by releasing the Sony TR-72, a product
that won favor both within Japan and in export markets, including
Canada
, Australia, the Netherlands
and Germany
.
Featuring six transistors, push-pull output and greatly improved
sound quality, the TR-72 continued to be a popular seller into the
early sixties.
In May 1956, the company released the TR-6, which featured an
innovative slim design and sound quality capable of rivaling
portable tube radios. It was for the TR-6 that Sony first
contracted "Atchan", a cartoon character created by Fuyuhiko Okabe,
to become its
advertising
character. Now known as "Sony Boy", the character first
appeared in a cartoon ad holding a TR-6 to his ear, but went on to
represent the company in ads for a variety of products well into
the mid-sixties. The following year, 1957, Tokyo Telecommunications
Engineering came out with the TR-63 model, then the smallest (112 ×
71 × 32 mm) transistor radio in commercial production. It was
a worldwide commercial success.
University of
Arizona
professor Michael Brian Schiffer, Ph.D., says,
"Sony was not first, but its transistor radio was the most
successful. The TR-63 of 1957 cracked open the U.S. market
and launched the new industry of consumer microelectronics." By the
mid 1950s, American teens had begun buying portable transistor
radios in huge numbers, helping to propel the fledgling industry
from an estimated 100,000 units in 1955 to 5,000,000 units by the
end of 1968.
Sony's headquarters moved to
Minato,
Tokyo from
Shinagawa, Tokyo
around the end of 2006.
Origin of name
When Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo was looking for a romanized name to use to
market themselves, they strongly considered using their initials,
TTK. The primary reason they did not is that the railway company
Tokyo Kyuko was known as TKK. The
company occasionally used the acronym "Totsuko" in Japan, but
during his visit to the United States, Morita discovered that
Americans had trouble pronouncing that name. Another early name
that was tried out for a while was "Tokyo Teletech" until Morita
discovered that there was an American company already using
Teletech as a brand name.
The name "Sony" was chosen for the brand as a mix of two words. One
was the
Latin word
Sonus which is the
root of "sonic" and "sound" and the other was "sonny", a familiar
term used in 1950s America to call a boy. name="SonyHistory"/>
The first Sony-branded product, the TR-55 transistor radio,
appeared in 1955 but the company name didn't change to Sony until
January 1958. Sony.co.uk. About Sony.
The History of the Sony
Corporation
At the time of the change, it was extremely unusual for a Japanese
company to use
Roman
letters instead of
kanji to spell its
name. The move was not without opposition: TTK's principal bank at
the time,
Mitsui, had strong feelings about
the name. They pushed for a name such as Sony Electronic
Industries, or Sony Teletech.
Akio
Morita was firm, however, as he did not want the company name
tied to any particular industry. Eventually, both Ibuka and Mitsui
Bank's chairman gave their approval.
Products, technologies and proprietary formats
Sony has historically been notable for creating its own in-house
standards for new recording and storage technologies, instead of
adopting those of other manufacturers and standards bodies. The
most infamous of these was the
videotape format war of the early
1980s, when Sony marketed the
Betamax system
for video cassette recorders against the
VHS
format developed by
JVC. In the end, VHS gained
critical mass in the marketplace and became the worldwide standard
for consumer VCRs and Sony adopted the format. While Betamax is for
all practical purposes an obsolete format, a professional-oriented
component video format called
Betacam that was derived from Betamax is
still used today, especially in the film and television
industry.
In 1968 Sony introduced the
Trinitron
brand name for its line of
aperture grille cathode ray tube televisions and (later)
computer monitors.
Trinitron displays are
still produced, but only for markets such as Pakistan
, Bangladesh
, India
and China
. Sony
discontinued the last Trinitron-based television set in the USA in
early 2007. Trinitron computer monitors were discontinued in
2005.
Sony launched the
Betamax videocassette recording format in
1975. In 1979 the
Walkman brand was
introduced, in the form of the world's first portable music
player.
1982 saw the launch of Sony's professional
Betacam videotape format and the collaborative
Compact Disc format. In 1983 Sony
introduced 90 mm micro diskettes (better known as
floppy disks), which it had developed at a time
when there were 4" floppy disks and a lot of variations from
different companies to replace the then on-going 5.25" floppy
disks. Sony had great success and the format became dominant; 3.5"
floppy disks gradually became obsolete as they were replaced by
current media formats. In 1983 Sony launched the
MSX, a home computer system, and introduced the world
(with their counterpart
Philips) to the
Compact Disc or CD. In 1984 Sony
launched the
Discman series which extended
their Walkman brand to portable CD products. In 1985 Sony launched
their Handycam products and the
Video8
format. Video8 and the follow-on hi-band
Hi8 format became popular in the consumer
camcorder market. In 1987 Sony launched the 4 mm DAT or
Digital Audio Tape as a new
digital audio tape standard.
In addition to developing consumer-based recording media, after the
launch of the
CD Sony began development
of commercially based recording media. In 1986 they launched
Write-Once
optical discs (WO) and in
1988 launched
Magneto-optical
disc which were around 125MB size for the specific use of
archival data storage.
In the early 1990s two high-density optical storage standards were
being developed: one was the MultiMedia Compact Disc (MMCD), backed
by Philips and Sony, and the other was the Super Density disc (SD),
supported by
Toshiba and many others.
Philips and Sony abandoned their MMCD format and agreed upon
Toshiba's SD format with only one modification based on MMCD
technology, viz
EFMPlus. The unified disc
format was called
DVD which was marketed in
1997.
Sony introduced the
MiniDisc format in 1993
as an alternative to
Philips DCC or
Digital Compact Cassette. Since the
introduction of MiniDisc, Sony has attempted to promote its own
audio compression technologies under the
ATRAC brand, against the
more widely used
MP3. Until late 2004, Sony's
Network Walkman line of
digital portable music players did not support the MP3 de facto
standard natively, although the provided software
SonicStage would convert MP3 files into the ATRAC
or ATRAC3 formats.
In 1993, Sony challenged the industry standard
Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound format with a
newer and more advanced proprietary motion picture digital audio
format called
SDDS (Sony
Dynamic Digital Sound). This format employed eight channels (7.1)
of audio opposed to just six used in Dolby Digital 5.1 at the time.
Unlike Dolby Digital, SDDS utilized a method of backup by having
mirrored arrays of bits on both sides of the film which acted as a
measure of reliability in case the film was partially damaged.
Ultimately, SDDS has been vastly overshadowed by the preferred DTS
(
Digital Theatre System) and
Dolby Digital standards in the motion picture industry. SDDS was
solely developed for use in the theatre circuit; Sony never
intended to develop a home theatre version of SDDS.
In 1998, Sony launched their
Memory
Stick format;
flash memory cards
for use in Sony lines of digital cameras and portable music
players. It has seen little support outside of Sony's own products
with
Secure Digital cards (SD)
commanding considerably greater popularity . This is due in part to
the SD format's greater throughput (which allows faster devices),
higher capacities, and significantly lower price per unit capacity
compared to Memory Sticks available at the same time. Sony has made
updates to the Memory Stick format with
Memory Stick Duo
and
Memory Stick
Micro.
Sony and Philips jointly developed the Sony-Philips digital
interface format (
S/PDIF) and the
high-fidelity audio system
SACD. The
latter has since been entrenched in a format war with
DVD-Audio. At present, neither has gained a major
foothold with the general public. CDs are preferred by consumers
because of ubiquitous presence of CD drives in consumer
devices.
In 1994 Sony launched the
PlayStation
(later
PS one). This successful console was succeeded by
the
PlayStation 2 in 2000, itself
succeeded by the
PlayStation 3 in
2006. The PlayStation 2 has become the most successful video game
console of all time. It has sold a total of over 140 million units
and still going. The PlayStation brand was extended to the portable
games market in 2005 by the
PlayStation Portable. Sony developed
the
Universal Media Disc (UMD)
optical disc medium for use on the PlayStation Portable. Although
Sony tried to push the UMD format for movies, major-studio support
for the format was cut back in spring 2006, though as of 2009 some
major-studio titles continue to be released on UMD.
In 2004, Sony built upon the
MiniDisc
format by releasing
Hi-MD. Hi-MD
allows the playback and recording of audio on newly-introduced 1 GB
Hi-MD discs in addition to playback and recording on regular
MiniDiscs. Recordings on the Hi-MD Walkmans can be transferred to
and from the computer virtually unrestricted, unlike earlier
NetMD. In addition to saving audio on
the discs, Hi-MD allows the storage of computer files such as
documents, videos and photos. Hi-MD introduced the ability to
record CD-quality audio with a linear PCM recording feature. It was
the first time since MiniDisc's introduction in 1992 that the
ATRAC codec could be bypassed and lossless CD-quality audio
could be recorded on the small discs.

Sony's retail store, Sony Style
Sony was one of the leading developers and remains one of the
strongest proponents of the
Blu-ray
Disc optical disc format, which eventually emerged as the
market leader over the competing standard,
Toshiba's
HD DVD, after a 2
year-long format war. The first Blu-ray players became commercially
available in June 2006, and Sony's first Blu-ray player, the
Sony BDP-S1, debuted in December 2006
with an MSRP of US $999.95. By the end of 2007 the format had the
backing of every major motion picture studio except Universal,
Paramount, and Dreamworks. The Blu-ray format's popularity
continued to increase, solidifying its position as the dominant HD
media format, and Toshiba announced its decision to stop supporting
HD DVD on 19 February 2008.
On 10 September 2007 Sony unveiled
Rolly, an
egg-shaped
digital
robotic music player which has colour lights
that flash as it “
dances” and has flapping wings that can
twist to its
tunes. Movements along with the
music downloaded from personal
computers
and
Bluetooth can be set.
Rolly, which went on
sale in Japan
on 29
September 2007, has one gigabyte of
memory to store tunes. Sony also
developed dog-shaped robots called
AIBO and
humanoids and
QRIO.
In summary, Sony has over the years introduced these standards:
Umatic (~1968), Betamax (1975), Betacam (81), Compact Disc (82),
3.5 inch Floppy Disk (82), Video8 (85), DAT (87), Hi8 (88),
Minidisc (~90), Digital Betacam (~90), miniDV (92), Memory Stick
(98), Digital8 (99), PSP Universal Media Disc (~2003), HDV (~2004),
Blu-ray Disc (2006).
Management
On 22 June 2005,
Nobuyuki Idei stepped
down as Sony Corp. Chairman and Group CEO and was replaced by
Howard Stringer, then Chairman and CEO of Sony Corporation of
America, Corporate Executive Officer, Vice Chairman and COO Sony
Entertainment Business Group. Sony's decision to replace Idei with
the British Howard Stringer marked the first time that a foreigner
has run a major Japanese electronics firm. On the same date,
Kunitake Ando stepped down as
President and was replaced by Ryoji Chubachi.
Mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures
- 1987 — On 18 November, Sony acquired CBS Records Group
from CBS. It was renamed "Sony Music Entertainment" in
1991.
- 1989 — 28 September; Acquired Columbia Pictures
Entertainment from The Coca-Cola
Company for US$3.4 billion. It was subsequently renamed
"Sony Pictures
Entertainment" in 1991.
- 1989 — 29 September; Acquired The Guber-Peters
Entertainment Company for $200 million.
- 1993 — Acquired Psygnosis
Limited a computer games company based in Liverpool, UK.
Psygnosis director Ian Hetherington was made Managing Director of
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe
- 1995 — Sony/ATV Music
Publishing, a 50:50 joint venture of Sony Corporation of America and
Michael Jackson.
- 1997 — ST Liquid Crystal
Display Corporation (STLCD), a 50:50 joint venture of Sony
Corporation and Toyota
Industries.
- 2001 — Sony Ericsson, a 50:50
joint venture of Sony Corporation and Ericsson AB, was established on 1 October.
- 2002 — Aiwa Corporation in
October.
- 2004 — S-LCD, a joint venture of Sony
Corporation and Samsung
Electronics (Samsung Electronics: 50% plus 1 share, Sony: 50%
minus 1 share) was established in April.
- 2004 — On 20 July, the European
Union approved a 50-50 merger between Sony Music Entertainment and
BMG. The new company was
named Sony BMG Music Entertainment and, as
of 2005, holds a 21.5% share in the global music market, behind
worldwide leader Universal Music
Group, which has a 25.5% share.
- 2005 — On 8 April, The MGM Company (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and United Artists) was acquired by a Sony-led
consortium (Providence Equity
Partners 29%, TPG Capital 21%, Sony
20%, Comcast 20%, DLJ Merchant Banking Partners 7% and Quadrangle Group 3%) finalized the deal to
purchase the film studio for about $4.8 billion, including $2bn in
debts from Armenian-American Kirk
Kerkorian.
- 2006 — Sony NEC Optiarc Inc, a
55:45 (Sony 55%, NEC 45%) joint venture of Sony
Corporation and NEC Corporation, was established
in April.
- 2006 — Obtained an option to acquire half of Michael
Jackson's 50% stake in Sony/ATV Music Publishing.
- 2006 — Acquired digital Single Lens Reflex (Digital SLR) cameras
section from Konica Minolta including
digital camera support and servicing.
- 2006 — Acquired Grouper Networks (now
Crackle, Inc.), a Sausalito
-based startup company that created a user generated
video sharing platform and P2P technology for $65M.
- 2006 — Field Emission Technologies Inc., a carve-out of Sony's nano-Spindt FED technology.
Established in December 2006 by Technology Carve-Out Investment LLP
(62.2%) and Sony (37.8%).
- 2007 — Qreatic Design Inc, a 50:50 joint venture of Sony
Corporation and Qimonda AG.
- 2007 — Moversa GmbH, a 50:50 joint venture of Sony
Corporation and NXP
Semiconductors.
- 2008 — Acquired Gracenote, Inc.
for $260M.
- 2008 — Acquired Bertelsmann AG
's 50% stake in Sony BMG Music
Entertainment
Manufacturing base
Slightly more than 50% of the electronics' segment's total annual
production during the fiscal year 2005 took place in Japan,
including the production of digital cameras, video cameras, flat
panel televisions, personal computers, semiconductors and
components such as batteries and Memory Sticks. Approximately 65%
of the annual production in Japan was destined for other regions.
China accounted for slightly more than 10% of total annual
production, approximately 70% of which was destined for other
regions.
Asia, excluding Japan and China, accounted for slightly more than
10% of total annual production with approximately 60% destined for
Japan, the US and the EU. The Americas and Europe together
accounted for the remaining slightly less than 25% of total annual
production, most of which was destined for local distribution and
sale.
Global slowdown affects this year, Sony Corp suffered its first
annual loss in 14 years and could be grimmer in upcoming years
too.
Controversy
Fictitious movie reviewer
In July 2000, a marketing executive working for Sony Corporation
created a fictitious film critic,
David Manning, who gave
consistently good reviews for releases from Sony subsidiary
Columbia Pictures, which generally received poor reviews amongst
real critics.
Malicious software (spyware)
In October 2005, it was revealed by
Mark Russinovich of
Sysinternals that
Sony
BMG's music CDs had installed a
rootkit
on the user's computer as a
DRM measure (called
Extended Copy Protection by its
creator, British company
First 4
Internet), which was difficult to detect or remove. This
constitutes a crime in many countries, and poses a major security
risk to affected users. The uninstaller Sony initially provided
removed the rootkit, but in turn installed a
dial-home program that posed an even greater
security risk. Sony eventually provided an actual uninstaller that
removed all of Sony's DRM program from the user's computer. Sony
BMG faced several class action lawsuits regarding this matter.On 31
January 2007, the U. S. Federal Trade Commission issued a
news
release announcing that Sony BMG had agreed to settle Federal
Trade Commission charges that Sony BMG committed several offenses
against United States federal law. This settlement required that
Sony BMG allow consumers to exchange the CDs through 30 June 2007,
and to reimburse consumers for up to $150 for the repair of damage
to their computers that they may have incurred while removing the
software.
Digital Rights Management
In 2006 Sony started using
ARccOS
Protection on some of their film DVDs, which caused
compatibility problems with some DVD players—including models
manufactured by Sony. After complaints, Sony was forced to issue a
recall.
In August 2007, security firm F-Secure reported that the MicroVault
USB thumb drive installs a rootkit in a hidden directory without
consent on user computers. The directory is intended to protect
fingerprint data, however it can be used for malicious means as
most virus scanners will not search for the directory or its
contents. Sony advised it was conducting an investigation on the
third-party product, and would offer a fix by mid-September.
In September 2009 Sony had its Mexican office raided by police to
recover over 6000 CDs, masters and artwork, by the popular Latin
American artist
Alejandro
Fernández. Fernández's lawyers claimed that Sony was in breach
of contract as Fernández had been contracted to Sony for seven
albums and the recordings were an eighth album made after the
contract had expired.
Controversial advertisements
Sony
admitted in late 2005 to hiring graffiti
artists to spray paint advertisements for their PlayStation Portable game system in
seven major U.S. cities including New York City
, Philadelphia
, and San Francisco
. The mayor of Philadelphia filed a
cease and desist order. According to Sony,
they paid businesses and building owners for the right to graffiti
their walls. As of early January 2006, Sony had no plans to keep or
withdraw them.
In July 2006, Sony released a Dutch advertising campaign featuring
a white model dressed entirely in white and a black model garbed in
black. The first ad featured the white model clutching the face of
the black model. The words "White is coming" headlined one of the
ads. The ad has been viewed as racist by critics. A Sony
spokesperson responded that the ad does not have a racist message,
saying that it was only trying to depict the contrast between the
black PSP model and the new ceramic white PSP. Other pictures of
the ad campaign include the black model overpowering the white
model.
In November 2006, a marketing company employed by Sony created a
website entitled "All I want for Xmas is a PSP", designed to
promote the
PSP through
viral marketing. The site contained
a blog, which was purportedly written by "Charlie", a teenager
attempting to get his friend "Jeremy"'s parents to buy him a PSP,
providing links to t-shirt iron-ons, Christmas cards, and a "music
video" of either Charlie or Jeremy "rapping". However, visitors to
the website soon discovered that the website was registered to a
marketing company, exposing the site on sites such as
YouTube and
digg, and Sony was
forced to admit the site's true origin in a post on the blog,
stating that they would from then on "stick to making cool
products" and that they would use the website for "the facts on the
PSP". The site has since been
taken down. In an interview with next-gen.biz, Sony admitted that
the idea was "poorly executed".
Legal
In 2002,
Sony Computer Entertainment America, marketer of the popular
PlayStation game consoles, was sued by
Immersion Corporation of
San Jose,
California
which claimed that Sony's PlayStation "Dual Shock"
controllers infringed on Immersion's patents. In 2004, a
federal jury agreed with Immersion, awarding the company US$82
million in damages. A U.S. district court judge ruled on the matter
in March 2005 and not only agreed with the federal jury's ruling
but also added another US$8.7 million in damages. This is likely
the reason that the
Sixaxis controller for
the PlayStation 3 had no rumble feature. The
DualShock 3 has since been made available for the
PlayStation 3, reintroducing rumble
capabilities.
Microsoft Corp. was also
sued for its
Xbox controller, however, unlike
Sony, they settled out of court so they could continue using the
technology for the follow-up
Xbox
360.
A California judge ordered Sony to pay Immersion a licensing fee of
1.37 percent per quarter based on the sales of PlayStation units,
Dual Shock controllers, and a selection of PlayStation 2 games that
use Immersion's technology.
In 2008, Sony Computer Electronics, faces a multi-million dollar
lawsuit for consumer fraud in misrepresenting consumer rights to
customers in America over product engraving. Customers were told
they had to send in defective merchandise for repair rather than
refund or replacement.
Batteries
In April 2006, a Sony laptop battery exploded in Japan and caught
fire.
A
Japanese couple in Tokyo sued both Sony and Apple
Japan for
over ¥2 million ($16,700 USD) regarding the incident. The
suit argues that the man suffered burns on his finger when the
battery burst into flames while being used, and his wife had to be
treated for mental distress due to the incident.
On 14 August 2006, Sony and
Dell admitted to
major flaws in several Sony
batteries that could result in the
battery overheating and catching fire. As a result they recalled
over 4.1 million laptop batteries in the largest computer-related
recall to that point in history. The cost of this recall is being
shared between
Dell and Sony. Dell also
confirmed that one of its laptops caught fire in Illinois.
This
recall also prompted Japan's Ministry
of Economy, Trade and Industry
to order the companies to investigate the troubles
with the batteries. The ministry said they must report on
their findings and draw up a plan to prevent future problems by the
end of August, or face a fine under consumer safety laws.
Ten days
later on 24 August 2006, Apple Computer
recalled 1.8 million Sony built batteries after
receiving nine reports of batteries overheating, including two
customers who suffered minor burns, and additional reports of
property damage.
On 19 September 2006,
Toshiba announced it
was recalling 340,000 Sony laptop batteries. This recall, however,
is not related to the recalls by Apple and Dell, as the batteries
are known to cause the laptops to sometimes run out of power. No
injuries or other accidents have been reported, according to
Toshiba spokesman Keisuke Omori.
On 23 September 2006, Sony announced its investigation of a
Lenovo ThinkPad T43
laptop which overheated and caught fire in Los Angeles
International Airport on 16 September, an incident that was
confirmed by Lenovo. On 28 September 2006, Lenovo and IBM made the
global recall of 526,000 laptop batteries.
On 28 September 2006, Sony announced a global battery exchange
program in response to growing consumer concerns.
On 2 October 2006,
Hewlett-Packard
(HP) determined that it was not necessary for them to join the
global battery replacement program.
On 3 October 2006, the
Yomiuri
Shimbun (a Japanese Newspaper) reported that Sony was aware of
faults in its notebook PC batteries in December 2005 but failed to
fully study the problem.
On 16 October 2006,
Fujitsu announced it was
recalling 278,000 Sony laptop batteries. It was also reported that
Fujitsu, Toshiba, and Hitachi may seek compensation from Sony over
the battery recalls.
On 25 April 2007,
Acer announced that
27,000 batteries from
TravelMate and
Aspire series notebooks sold from May
2004 to November 2006 were recalled due to 16 reports of
overheating and explosions.
On 24 August 2007, it emerged that some of Sony's batteries that
were not recalled, and in use on Dell laptop computers, may be at
risk of catching fire and exploding; as another case of a Dell
laptop with a Sony battery in it, came to light.
On 30 October 2008, the recall of an additional 100,000 batteries
produced by Sony was announced by Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and
Toshiba due to around forty cases of batteries overheating being
reported globally.
CCD
Initially, in October 2005, it was reported by Sony that there were
problems with the
charge-coupled
devices (CCD) in 20 models of digital still cameras. The
problems can prevent the cameras from taking clear pictures, and in
some cases, possibly prevent a picture to be taken at all. In late
November 2006, the recall was broadened to eight additional models
of digital cameras sold between 2003 and 2005. The problem appears
to manifest itself mostly when the camera is used in areas with hot
weather. The eight models affected are the following: DSC-F88,
DSC-M1, DSC-T1, DSC-T11, DSC-T3, DSC-T33, DSC-U40 and DSC-U50. Sony
did indicate that they will repair or replace the affected camera
at no charge. Since Sony is one of the largest producers of CCD
chips, this recall may affect other manufacturer's and models of
cameras, possibly as many as 100 models or more. Other
manufacturers of digital cameras, including Canon, Minolta, Nikon,
Olympus or Fuji have indicated they will replace faulty CCDs in
their respective models of cameras if necessary.
Virtualization disabled on VAIO laptops
Previously Sony has disabled hardware virtualization on their high
end
VAIO laptops.
This means that the
Windows 7 operating system as well as
virtualization software such as VMWare,
VirtualBox and others are unable to make
use of Intel
's or
AMD
's virtualization technology embedded in their
CPU. Sony's senior manager for product marketing, Xavier
Lauwaert, responded that "our engineers and QA people were very
concerned that enabling VT would expose our systems to malicious
code".
However, with the new BIOS that are being released, most of the new
laptops are now officially being enabled with this feature. This
includes Vaio Z models with BIOS R2170M3 and R4043M3.
Environmental record
Sony has received numerous awards and much recognition for their
environmental efforts throughout the world. Their achievements in
the way of energy and environmental conservation have earned them
respect for their green campaign despite bad press from a low
ranking on
Greenpeace's greener
electronics report.
Improvement efforts
Since 1976, Sony has had an Environmental Conference. Sony's
policies address their effects on global warming, the environment,
and resources. They are taking steps to reduce the amount of
greenhouse gases that they put out as well as regulating the
products they get from their suppliers in a process that they call
"green procurement".
Sony has said that they have signed on to
have about 75 percent of their Sony Building
running on geothermal
power. The "Sony Take Back Recycling Program" allows
consumers to recycle the electronics products that they buy from
Sony by taking them to
eCycle
drop-off points around the U.S. The company has also developed a
biobattery that runs on sugars and carbohydrates that works
similarly to the way living creatures work. This is the most
powerful small
biobattery to date.
Green TV
For sale in Japan on 30 July, 2008, Sony's green product, new
flat-panel TV 150,000 yen (US$ 1,400; € 900) Bravia KDL-32JE1
offers ecological consumers advantages of less energy consumption
(70% less) than regular models with the same image quality. Sony
was able to reduce
carbon dioxide
emissions totaling 79
kilograms (174
pounds) a year, without sacrificing quality by developing a
brighter back light and better filtering, which produces light more
efficiently. The TVs will have liquid crystal displays along with
high-definition digital broadcast capabilities.
Criticism
In 2000, Sony was ridiculed for a document entitled "
NGO Strategy" that was leaked
to the press. The document involved the company's surveillance of
environmental activists in an attempt to plan how to counter their
movements. It specifically mentioned environmental groups that were
trying to pass laws that held electronics-producing companies
responsible for the clean up of the toxic chemicals contained in
their merchandise. In early July 2007, Sony ranked 14th on the
Greenpeace chart "Guide to Greener
Electronics." This chart graded major electronics companies on
their environmental work. Sony fell from its earlier 11th place
ranking due to
Greenpeace's claims that
Sony had double standards in their waste policies.
In 2005, it was made public that the Xbox game Full Spectrum
Warrior, developed by Sony Pictures Imageworks and Pandemic
Studios, was paid for in whole by the US Department of Defense, for
use as an urban combat trainer. Not only was the simulation never
used as intended, but the Army lost its full investment while
Pandemic Studios went on to release the simulation, now an
entertainment game, through THQ and it became a success. The wisdom
of the Army's contract with both Sony and Pandemic was questioned
in the press at the time.
On 9 December 2008, Sony Corp. said it will cut 16,000 jobs, curb
investment and pull out of businesses to save $9.1 billion a
year.
References
- Sony Corporate History (Japanese)
- Suzuki, Kyoko. " Sony Considers Sale of Properties Including Former
Headquarters." Bloomberg. 3 August 2006. Retrieved on
19 January 2009.
- " Sony to close symbol of TV business.."
Kyodo News International. 1 February 2007. Retrieved on 19
January 2009.
- Made in Japan - Akio Morita
and Sony (pg. 76) by Akio Morita with [müzik indir] müzik indir Edwin
M. Rheingold and Mitsuko Shimomura, Signet Books, 1986
- News.com.au, Sony unveils new twisting music
player
- Sony Corporation Announces New Management
Structure. Sony.net. Retrieved 7 March 2005.
-
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/ar/2006/qfhh7c00000akslc-att/qfhh7c00000aksmr.pdf
- iwriteishare.com
- Sony BMG Litigation Info. EFF.org. Electronic Frontier
Foundation.
- Sony faces class
action lawsuits for DRM. Wikinews.
- Sony admits, fixes problem with DVD DRM.
Arstechnica.com.
- Sony continues supplying rootkit-like software.
ZDnet.com.au.
- Sony confirms security problem. BBC News.
- Pirated Artist Orders Police Raid on Sony Music
Office
- Graffiti ads spark debate in US. BBC News.
- Wired News
- Washington Post: Pay Judgment Or Game Over, Sony Warned
- Sony to Initiate Global Replacement Program for
Notebook Computer Battery Pack, Sony Press Release, 28
September 2006.
- HP and Sony Joint Statement on Recent Battery Issues.,
Hewlett-Packard News Release, 2 October 2006.
- Sony finds CCD problem with some of its digital
cameras
- Sony Laptops Have Hardware Virtualization Disabled,
Can't Run Windows 7's XP Mode
- Vaio Z Windows 7 Bios and driver
- CSR Awards and Recognition from External
Organizations (since fiscal 2000)
- Sony belatedly unveils US recycling policy
- History of Environmental Activities at
Sony
- Sony Group Environmental Vision
- Sony develops World’s Most Powerful Sugar-based Bio
Battery Prototype
- www.iht.com, Sony develops green flat-panel TV to
woo ecological consumers
- gmanews.tv/story, Sony woos ecological consumers
with new flat-panel TV
- Sony's PR War on Activists
- Sony hits bottom of Greenpeace eco
rankings
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Further reading
External links