Sony Corporation (ソニー株式会社, Sonī Kabushiki-gaisha

History
When 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.

Company name
See also: List of Sony trademarks
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 its 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.
Early Sony products included reel-to-reel tape recorders and transistor radios.
In 1968 Sony introduced its Trinitron brand name for its line of aperture grille cathode ray tube televisions and later computer monitors. Trinitron displays are still produced.
Sony launched the Betamax videocassette recording format in 1975. The Walkman brand was introduced in 1979.
1982 saw the launch of Sony's Betacam videotape family and the collaborative Compact Disc format. In 1983 Sony introduced 90mm micro floppy diskettes (better known as 3.5-inch 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 more current media formats. In 1983 Sony launched the MSX, a home computer system, and introduced the world with their counterpart Philips 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 became popular in the consumer camcorder market. In 1987 Sony launched DAT or Digital Audio Tape as a new audio tape standard alternative to CD.
In addition to developing consumer-based recording medias, after the launch of the CD Sony began development of commercially based recording medias. In 1986 they launched Write-Once optical discs (WO) and in 1988 launched Magneto-optical discs 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 more widely used formats like 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 software SonicStage provided with them 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 its 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.
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 their ubiquitous presence in consumer devices.
In 1994 Sony launched its 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 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 studios stopped supporting the format in the Spring of 2006.
In 2004, Sony built upon its MiniDisc format by releasing Hi-MD. Hi-MD allows the playback and recording of audio on newly-introduced 1GB 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 its 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 is currently touting its Blu-ray Disc optical disc format, which is likely to compete with Toshiba's HD DVD. As of quarter one of 2006, Blu-ray Disc has the backing of every major motion picture studio except Universal. In December 2006 Sony debuted their first Blu-ray player, the Sony BDP-S1 with an MSRP of US $999.95. In mid 2007 Blockbuster video announced full exclusive support for Blu-ray as the high definition format to be carried in its stores.

Notable Sony products, technologies and proprietary formats
On March 7, 2005, Sony Corp. announced that Nobuyuki Idei will step down as Chairman and Group CEO and will be replaced by BOB Stinger, current 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 will mark the first time that a foreigner will run a major Japanese electronics firm. Sony Corp. also announced on the same date that current president, Kunitake Ando, will step down and be replaced by Ryoji Chubachi.

Management

1988 — CBS Records Group from CBS. It was renamed "Sony Music Entertainment".
1989 — Columbia Pictures Entertainment from Coca Cola for US$3.4 billion. It was subsequently renamed "Sony Pictures Entertainment" in 1991.
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.
2001 — Sony Ericsson a 50:50 joint venture of Sony Corporation and Ericsson AB, was established in October.
2002 — Aiwa Corporation in October.
2004 — S-LCD Corporation a joint venture of Sony Corporation and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd (Samsung Electronics: 50% plus 1 share, Sony: 50% minus 1 share) was established in April.
2004 — On July 20, 2004, the EU 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 April 8, 2005, The MGM Company (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and United Artists) was acquired by a Sony-led consortium (Providence Equity Partners 29%, Texas Pacific Group 21%, Sony 20%, Comcast 20%, DLJ Merchant Banking Partners 7% and Quadrangle Group 3%) finalised 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 —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. Mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures
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 Stick.
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.praveen [1]

Manufacturing base

Controversies
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.

Fictitious movie reviewer

Main article: 2005 Sony BMG CD copy protection scandal Digital rights management
To commemorate the tenth anniversary of the PlayStation (PS) gaming console in Italy, Sony released an ad depicting a man smiling towards the camera and wearing on his head a crown of thorns with button symbols (Triangle, O, X, Square). At the bottom, the copy read as "Ten Years of Passion". This outraged the Vatican as well as many local Catholics, prompting comments such as "Sony went too far" and "Vatican excommunicates Sony". After the incident, the campaign was quickly discontinued.

Legal
On April of 2006, a Sony laptop battery exploded in Japan and caught fire. A Japanese couple in Tokyo are currently (as of July, 2007) suing 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.

Batteries
Initially, in October of 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 of 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 effected 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, or Fuji have indicated they will replace faulty CCDs in their respective models of cameras if necessary.

See also