stringer

The global recession has hit Sony hard--the company on Thursday reported its first annual loss in 14 years.

Sony lost 165 billion yen ($1.72 billion) in the quarter that ended March 31, the fourth quarter of its fiscal year, compared with net income of 29 billion yen in the year-ago period. Revenue for the three-month period was 1.5 trillion yen ($15.5 billion), a drop of 22 percent from a year earlier.

Adding that to the previous three quarters of fiscal 2008, the company saw an annual loss of 98.9 billion yen ($1 billion). The loss was … Read more

Update at 9:10 a.m. PST: Comments added from an Ovum analyst.

The top three executives at Sony soon will all be named Howard Stringer.

The Japanese electronics giant on Friday announced a management shake-up in which Stringer, who already is serving as chairman and CEO, will also take on the role of company president. In doing so, Stringer replaces Ryoji Chubachi, who will become vice chairman.

At a press conference in Japan, Stringer played up the efficiencies of his becoming president. "Why do we need another executive in between me and this group?" he said, according … Read more

LAS VEGAS--It was fitting that in a city created as an elaborate fantasy world that a knight would get up on stage and tell us how to save the princess.

In this case, the knight is Sir Howard Stringer, CEO of Sony (and Knight Bachelor, a title awarded by the queen of England), and the princess is the consumer electronics industry. And according to Stringer, one of the keys to slaying the monster of the recession is the convergence of networked entertainment and technology.

In his keynote address on the opening day of CES here, besides pushing various Sony products … Read more

Sony boss Sir Howard Stringer has to be one of the most charming executives in all of techdom. But as Arthur Miller taught us, a smile and a shoeshine go only so far.

Remember this quote?: "You can take iPod and beat us over the head with it, but it's only one product. And we have a thousand products. Apple has two or three."

Oh boy. I'm sure Stringer winces whenever that quote gets trotted out. Now Stringer, who has been CEO since 2005, is reportedly mulling what the U.K.'s Times suggests will include &… Read more

Anyone who knows my television viewing habits knows that the only program I have my DVR automatically record for me is Charlie Rose, the long-running PBS talk show (OK, there was a season of Prison Break in there somewhere, too, but let's not talk about that).

Last night's episode, featuring a long, candid conversation with Sir Howard Stringer, chairman and CEO of Sony, should be required viewing for anyone interested in consumer electronics.

During the course of the show, Stringer talks, fairly knowledgeably, about the PlayStation 3, how Sony lost the portable music player market, how Blu-ray vs. HD DVD played out differently than the Betamax vs. VHS battle, the future importance (and current impracticality) of OLED displays, and the painfully low margin on PC hardware (even expensive Vaios). He also makes a surprisingly spirited pitch for the PlayStation Network as a delivery system for all kinds of content (check out his ideas about using the PS3 and PlayStation Network as a platform capable of sharing content with the iPhone). … Read more

I've always admired Sir Howard Stringer. Any ex-journo who can finagle a knighthood (honorary or not) from the queen obviously has a lot on the ball. When he took over at Sony three years ago, he knew he was walking into a mess. The fact that this historically very insular company was willing to put its trust in a gaijin spoke volumes about a willingness to change.

He carried out the mandatory reorganization and promise to break down the famously high walls separating divisions and product groups. Stringer wanted to get the creative juices flowing again so Sony could … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Can Sony finally bring itself out of the analog century? Howard Stringer thinks so.

"We are pushing Sony faster into the digital world," Sony's CEO told a smattering of journalists at the Consumer Electronics Show here. The company that brought you the now long-dethroned Walkman and, for all too brief a stay, the Aibo robo-mutt was long divided into fiefdoms that didn't get along so well. Now it's learning how to more tightly integrate hardware, software and content for the benefit of its future product lines.

"Two years ago, you were all muttering … Read more