RSSThings left unsaid, in a recent interview with Sony's CEO
By Angela Gunn | Published October 11, 2008, 11:16 AM
When Charlie Rose interviewed Sony CEO Sir Harold Stringer on Wednesday, a few excellent questions were posed -- but a few others should have been.
No American television host conducts long-form interviews like Charlie Rose -- especially when the interview subject has a lot of 'splainin' to do. Enter Sir Howard Stringer, chairman and CEO of Sony, who sat down for a marvelous show-long interview with Rose on Wednesday.
Stringer recounted the epic task of fixing Sony's byzantine, uncommunicative corporate culture, where different divisions would build two or three different versions of the same product without realizing that efforts were being duplicated. He was incredibly charming about Steve Jobs' impact on his thinking (and not just in music-player-related matters). And he has some very bright things to say about how our current economic crisis looks for an international man (born in Wales, head of a Japanese company -- but a US citizen and voter).
Still, Rose didn't ask everything tech folk might have asked of the 66-year-old Vietnam veteran and classical-music fan. So, to encourage you to watch the interview, enclosed please find five excellent questions on which Sir Harold expounds beautifully -- and six unanswered questions that should encourage Charlie Rose to ask him back again soon. Your mileage may vary; the comments field awaits.
| Video from Charlie Rose's recent PBS interview with Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer. |
Worth hearing:
- The current economic "crash," or whatever you want to call it will eventually require the world to lean more heavily on the Chinese, who will be able to dictate many of their own terms since they own so much debt worldwide. Sony has done well so far during the downturn, since people crave entertainment to take their mind off the mayhem, but events are still unfolding.
- The success of Blu-Ray was an effort requiring "six or seven" different parts of the company to act in concert in an effort Stringer branded, soccer, style, "Sony United." Describing the victory over the HD DVD format as one that placed it "in direct competition with something that has worked," he's relieved that the success of the standard means no one will carve "BETAMAX 2" on his tombstone.
- Stringer thinks that Hollywood movies click with viewers like nothing else on earth ("no one can match US movies for global appeal"), and says Will Smith is the biggest movie star in the world, in large part because of his relentless work ethic when it's time to promote his films.
- He loves the potential of OLEDs, and believes that once prices drop they'll change many of the ways in which we interact with data. It's likely to dovetail with his vision for integrating 'Sony experience' content over multiple platforms (TV, computer, PS3 -- in his words, "different screens").
- He once sassed a man who held the fate of his US citizenship in his hands. As a young man -- before his war service -- he found himself waiting nine hours at an American embassy for certain paperwork. Near the end of the day, he ended up dealing with a cranky low-level bureaucrat who asked him why he thought he'd be able to get a job in America. He retorted, "Well, YOU did!"
Unasked:
- If Stringer could go back and redo his company's then-co-owned music publisher's decision to use music CDs to install rootkits on customers' computers, how would he change it?
- At what point was the Walkman irrevocably eclipsed by the iPod, and at what point could Sony have prevented that outcome? Also, was ATRAC a total failure?
- How will Sony music and movie divisions have changed the way they do business five years from now?
- Where does Stringer look for innovation, and what does he think of the quality of innovations coming from American designers and engineers?
- Has he ever tried the Wii, and what did he think?
(And a bonus question you'll never hear from Charlie R.: Could he please bring back the Aibo? Some of us weren't done with that.)
i hate to admit this but sony is worst than Apple
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|Sony will doom itself because they don't want us the consumers to be happy, Sony was talking about blu-ray and sales and everything but yet Sony doesn't want to release any movies on Blu-Ray, but yet Sony wants us the consumers to buy one of their blu-ray players, how can we when there is a lack of blu-ray movies coming from them. Sony needs to smarten up and release more movies on blu-ray. Sony has all these blu-ray players on the market to buy but yet where are the movies on blu-ray to play in them? If everything is suppose to be on blu-ray then sony needs to start releasing them.
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|Uh.. is name is Howard Stringer, not Harold. The video splash says his name fully as does the reference... and yet the author of the article still inserts the wrong name twice into the story.
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|! Tch. Thanks Scrumbus. This is what happens when your writer's got the radio on during final edit, I suppose.
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|"If Stringer could go back and redo his company's then-co-owned music publisher's decision to use music CDs to install rootkits on customers' computers, how would he change it?
At what point was the Walkman irrevocably eclipsed by the iPod, and at what point could Sony have prevented that outcome? Also, was ATRAC a total failure?
Has he ever tried the Wii, and what did he think?"
Are you kidding??? LOL!
As if financial and market analysis don't already provide adequate means to ascertain this? And as if some other mystical force could be invoked to modify those factors...?
And as to the last...he could love it , hate it, or be indifferent to it. Who cares? What, so Sony should copy the Wii?
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|He would have made the CD rootkits stealthier, you insensitive clod!
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|Thanks for getting in touch with your feelings responding to an already ridiculous question...
...as if the answer would not OBVIOULSY have been to take any action to avoid the negative PR! Take your pick feelings boy! DUH!
LOL...
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|Hi foxfyre -- um, okay, you're clear that this was an interview? With a person? With opinions? If you're interested in that person's opinions (I am), these questions are a few on which his personal opinion could elucidate his thinking. If you don't, the entire premise of doing an interview is kind of silly.
So explain yourself -- are you down on the whole ask-other-people's-opinions concept, or just not liking these questions? And if the latter is the case, what questions would you ask?
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|Foxfyre, have a listen to the interview. I think, based on some of the things Sir Howard had to say about balancing IP and usability, his answer might have been more nuanced than you give him credit for. (And frankly, I think we all may overestimate the "negative PR" aspect of the rootkit mess, as much as I wish it had been a major topic of discussion in the wider non-geek culture. Trust me, most civilians didn't care much one way or the other. It's sort of similar to how you'd expect a company that suffers a major, preventable data breach -- TJX, for instance -- to take a hit at the cash register. They never do. Stunning, isn't it.)
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|Interesting questions that might offer real insight or real options might be interesting. Asking people for opinions about what has already factually unfolded and is objectively known is not.
Questions?
How about the pricing of BR? And if they have won the format war, why have all of the proposed systems introduced been up to twice the price of the already prohibitively priced PS3 and that's ONLY for a PLAYER!
And BR has won what, exactly? Sole possession of a minor niche market that has heretofore offered no compelling reason for adoption and absolutely no competitve pricing pressure on the commodity DVD market?
And why was the cassette replaced by digital solid state memory? I don't know, why aren't you still listening to cassettes? Fancy, there is a larger market determining this market than simply the Walkman and the iPod!
And what does he thnk about the Wii? Frankly, who cares! Better, he had better start looking at why the LARGER market does! With the Wii selling at a much more attractive price point (and at SUBSTANTIALLY greater volumes!) for families, why isn't Sony responding by reducing the exorbitant price of entry - as well as for consumables - for BR????? As above, the silence on this issue of prohibitive cost of entry as well as consumables versus perceived return, is deafening!
Not to mention that BR is COMPLETELY ignored by the large enterprise data storage market! A HUGE failure in attempting to move a medium into the mainstream while affording an opportunity to reduce both manufacturing and consumer costs via economies of scale!
And the fundamental issue consistent from Beta on: Sony has consistently introduced proprietary and exclusionary formats that have not been industry friendly - and as a direct result have consistently failed in their attempts to have them dominate.
See a pattern here? So.....why does Sony persist in this endeavor? The issues are a bit more fundamental than what color the device is available in or why in hell Sony would even try to impede the transition from cassette to hard copy or downloadable digital content!
And the issue of Sony's quality control - for which executives have formally offered a very embarassing mea culpa in the past 2 years - hasn't been touched! A company literally known for near bulletproof equipment 20 years ago has fallen to a company where even the stalwart supporters fear device failure.
Its nice to have a social chat, it would have been more interesting to actually have hit on real issues for which Sony is facing increasing market criticism and pressure.
Like it or not, the issues facing Sony have been strategic planning and strategic marketing issues - and they deserve analysis from that POV. And they are wide open on these issues, to the point of being the source of some pretty scathing case studies actively used in MBA programs.
And as such, a simple SWOT/TOWS analysis would have yielded a plethora of pointed questions aimed at both problems as well as opportunities.
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|Sorry, but those who are oblivious remain oblivious. The remainder of the market becomes alienated. And due to the vocal alienation of many, some of the oblivious also pick up on the 'anything but Sony' buzz.
And Sony desparately needs ALL of the market! And losing a substantial amount of the fanboy market as well as the technically aware due to a stupid schema as a rootkit (and gee - how many people use computers? And by virtue that they use a computer, should we assume they are all tech savvy? (Hardly!) ...Rather a significant market, wouldn't you think?) is anything but insignificant.
Few companies outside of Bose and Monster have such a large and vocal base of utterly alienated and vocal opponents!
Not to mention the fact that the company has actively eaten its own in the jettisoning of principal developers as well as consumer good will. So much so that an established Japanese company entertained the notion of an AMERICAN CEO!
There are more pressing issues than one's opinion of why the larger market moved from cassette to digital formats. Sony simply played to the existing market - they did not drive it!
And they are becoming more marginalized every day. Not sure, just Google "Sony sucks" and stand back...and wonder why!
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|I would have suggested that the Walkman was irrevocably eclipsed by their own Discman. ;)
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|"Also, was ATRAC a total failure?"
Erm... that's an easy one: Yes.
Do you see anyone using it now?
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|Honestly, when I wrote that question I was thinking of Colbert: "ATRAC... big failure, or the BIGGEST failure?" Don't see anyone using it now and didn't see anyone using it then. Or ever. (And though it isn't totally responsible for the failure of the *man music-player line, it sure didn't help, and it pointed to a remarkable lack of awareness of their then-current market position. Sheesh.) That said, I'd like to hear it from his point of view. Did they learn anything? Did they rethink anything? On what feedback were they operating to launch that mess, and how have they changed that feedback process? Sometimes the answers to the what-the-heck-were-you-thinking questions can be incredibly illuminating as to how a company operates. (And a good reporter doesn't just ask about the successes, or the perceived successes -- much respect to Charlie Rose, but less Blu-Ray more ATRAC plskthx.)
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|I wondered at that juncture whether C. Rose is one of those gadget hounds who simply must own the New Thing and can't believe we all aren't scrambling to do so too; I wouldn't say Blu-Ray's won anything yet but pwnage of HD-DVD. As mapped to the ancient VHS-vs-Betamax wars, though, I can see not wanting to be thought of as the Betamax team. (And if anyone reading this is a Betamax fan, hey, sorry. I've never seen one in action but I hear it was rather superior tech for its time.)
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|"The success of Blu-Ray"
*spits coke on the keyboard laughing*
Talk about putting one's head in the sand.
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|Lol kind of what I was thinking...What is this success he is speaking of?
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|Well, imagine if you will, that the Titanic was involved with, and leading, in a Trans-Atlantic race when it hit the iceberg...
LOL!
Its rather like saying the last soldier killed at the Little Big Horn was the winner! A Pyrrhic victory at best!
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|If thats success I'd like to see failure...
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|We all might as well step aside and let Steve Jobs sum it up for us: "bag of hurt." He meant the licensing for Blu-Ray, not from the consumer POV, but I feel pretty comfortable opening that umbrella wider. Bag. Of. Hurt.
(And I can't believe no one here's said it yet, so I will: I JUST BARELY FINISHED REPLACING MY VCR TAPES WITH DVDs. BLU-RAY = DO NOT WANT. Whew. Thank you. Much better.)
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