Buzz Watch: Sony Boss Talks About Steve Jobs and Losing The Grip On Portable Music

Authored by Jay Baage on March 18, 2007 - 12:24pm.

I came across a very interesting transcript of an upcoming TV interview with Sony boss Sir Howard Stringer taped on March 14, in which he talks about how Sony missed out on the portable music boom and the ongoing battle between Blu-ray/HD DVD formats as well as what the difference is betwen PS3 and Nintendo Wii.

In the interview on the PBS program CEO Exchange, Sir Stringer claims that Sony had its own version of iPod in the works before Apple did. The Sony chairman 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." In the end Sony designed a closed music system that didn't work.

In talking about current products, when asked about Apple's 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."

While Stringer is pleased with Sony's cellular phone progress, "I would never sit up here and say I'm not worried about Steve Jobs. I wouldn't bet against Steve. "About Blu-ray vs. HD DVD, Stringer was more pointed: "We are selling 3-to-1 vs. them. We have exclusives with Disney, Fox, Sony [and Lion's Gate] and they have the top 15 of 20 movies at the moment. At some point Blu-ray will take over based on ... this support."

He described HD DVD as a "transitional technology" that has "an exclusive with Universal ... so good luck to them. When hit titles came out last year, more came out on Blu ray."

And when asked about the popularity of Nintendo's Wii vs. PS3 , Stringer said, "Wii is a wonderful device, but has a different target audience. If we fail, it is because we positioned PS3 as the Mercedes of the video game field. PS3 is after a different audience and it can be whatever it wants — a home server, game device, even a computer."

Joakim Baage

Related Link:
Sony Boss Talks About Steve Jobs And Apple (SmartHouse)

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Comments

Humble in Defeat

Submitted by Stringer the Refer Smoker (not verified) on March 18, 2007 - 11:23pm.

At least he's smart enough to admit defeat. It is exactly because Blu-Ray is outselling HD-DVD 3-to-1 that PS3 is failing, too bad Sony can't seem to grasp this amazingly simple concept. Bundling Blu-Ray with PS3 essentially doomed the PS3 to failure from day one. I like that he's not an arrogant Sony exec. It must be painful if even the CEO doesn't know what the PS3's true identity is. Is it a games console? Perhaps a computer? Maybe a server? What is it?

Did you understand the article?

Submitted by Bobby (not verified) on March 20, 2007 - 1:25pm.

Perhaps there was a lack of understanding here. Isnt it a good thing that Playstation 3 supports the format that is massively outselling it's compettitor?Why would this cause the system to fail? The ps3 is identified first as a gaming system, there just happens to be a couple of other things it can do in addition to that. i bet ur just some xbox 360 lover, arent you?pshhhh!