Sony’s CEO Speaks On The iPod and iPhone
03.20.07 - 12:06pm
Sony CEO Stringer rarely speaks to the public as he works more behind the scenes propelling Sony forward. He has now however spoken in a rare TV interview as part of a upcoming CEO Exchange TV program on his rise to the top and how Sony was almost the one to break the iPod.
Stringer said that when first joined Sony in 1997 the company was run in “silos” with each division competing against each other. It created an environment with no sharing of information and ultimately doomed Sony’s own iPod like device. Afraid of digital media, they came out with ATRAC format instead, which worked only until the iPod came out and MP3 took over the market.
Stringer explained, “In 1997 we were working with IBM on electronic music distribution and could have put this out five years earlier [than iPod]. But we couldn’t get our people to understand software. And we are a music company. They saw digital media, panicked and didn’t like it.”
Sony has however seen the vision of the iPhone, before the iPhone. Stringer said, “The good news is that Steve Jobs spotted a trend that we’ve seen. The phone is a convergence device, between music and a phone. We are all building variations on the same theme. We have sold plenty of Walkman phones [from Sony Ericsson], especially in Europe.”
He does however go on to say that Apple is competition and he is not underestimating the power of Jobs, Apple and the iPhone. “I would never sit up here and say I’m not worried about Steve Jobs. I wouldn’t bet against Steve,” said Stringer.
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