Sonya Esman personal life. History of Sony. Exposing the lies and the whole truth about the founding of Sony

Everyone knows the impact Sony has had on our lives. Driven by the idea not to occupy, but to create new markets, Sony played the role of a pioneer and for a long time took a leading position in the sector that we now call “consumer electronics”.

Owning the Sony Music Entertainment record label, Columbia Pictures and TriStar Pictures, and complete archive MGM movies like Django Unchained, Spiderman, Fury.

Sony has become a launching pad for such famous artists as Elvis Prestley, Britney Spears, AC/DC. Not every company can boast such an impressive collection of stars.

Sony employees said that once the company's management allocated the main work time market research, new product development, and only part of the remaining time was dedicated to finance.

But how did Sony start in the post-war era, and who were its founders, the Japanese Masaru Ibuka and Akira Morita?

Akira Morita, co-founder of Sony, was having lunch when the news of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima arrived. This event served as a turning point in Japan's participation in the war. Akira understood everything and thanks to this, he began to think about creating his own company.

Morita was then 24 years old. He had already graduated from Osaka Imperial University and was accepted into an interdisciplinary group of scientists and engineers whose task was to improve thermal homing weapons and night sights.

The authorities hoped that, thanks to new developments in weapons, Japan would be able to win the war, but because of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan lost all hope of a fruitful continuation of hostilities. In fact, democracy represented by the United States has prevailed in this struggle. For Japan, everything was lost, time was up.

During the service, Akira turned to the leadership of his unit with a rather tricky request. He asked to be moved from the military barracks to the dormitory of the institute, where he went every day for research. He was given permission and released.

So, for several months, while others were going through Hard times, future Sony creator Akira Morita lived in the same house that his parents rented for him when he was a student and once a week had to send a progress report. This made it possible to Scientific research the most convenient pace, and, of course, to continue their studies.

Childhood of Akira Morita

Akira was first introduced to the business world at the age of 10, when his father took him to his seca brewery, the equivalent of a wine and vodka factory in Europe and Russia. Akira sat next to his father in negotiations and learned the basics of "proper management." Already at the age of 10, Akira was able to conduct business negotiations and communicate with representatives of the Japanese business elite.

Morita said that he even began to like it and that the experience helped him a lot in the future.

Morita's family was wealthy. The sake business has been in his family for generations. Sake is the national drink, you can even say sake in Japan, like vodka in our country. Everyone loved this drink. Akira's grandfather even managed to erect a monument in the center of the city where he lived for such a useful cause. And in our country, it was interesting to erect a monument to the owner of the wine and vodka factory? And if they put it, how will the wives of husbands react to this, who like to drink 0.5 of this wonderful drink on Friday evening, from which it simply blows the tower to the point of losing not only good spirits but also human qualities?

One of Morita's relatives was an engineer. When Morita heard that he himself designed the radio, he really wanted to see it. As soon as Morita came there, he could no longer leave from there. He was drawn there like an electric magnet. He found his calling. It even got to the point that Morita's performance at school began to fall and his mother was called to school more than once to talk about this topic. Passion for radio engineering in such young age undoubtedly paid off, not only to Akira, as the owner of a transnational corporation, but also to us, ordinary gray people. How many convenient and practical gadgets we were able to get thanks to this, it's just an indescribable joy!

Japan was gripped by war fever

Japan at that time was engulfed in a terrible war fever. Many were real fans of the emperor, they were ready to gladly go to death in order to defend the honor of Japan and the name of the ruler. It reminds a little of the situation in the Soviet Union under Stalin, doesn't it? Fanaticism, prison just for carelessly saying an “insulting” word in the direction of capitalism. Or maybe even in the direction of imaginary democracy, or what is even more interesting than nationalism? Like Hitler! It was a terrible time, thank God that it has passed and I hope this will never happen again. Now it is clear in what atmosphere Akira Morita received his male upbringing and how difficult it was in such conditions to create a company, and even such a large one.

We constantly heard cries that the Reds are a danger and a threat to Japan and only the Nazis can protect us from them. The actions of the Japanese armed forces that invaded China were praised in every possible way.
During all these years, we were brought up to treat the Soviets as a potential enemy and talked about the possibility of war with the Soviet Union. However, the most crushing blow to Japan, oddly enough, was dealt by the Americans.

Police officers roamed the country, arresting people on the slightest suspicion that they were not sufficiently loyal, submissive, or deferential to authority. Trolleybus conductors, passing by the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, announced to the passengers when they were all supposed to bow. Schoolchildren were required to bow as Shinto altars bearing the emperor's words were carried past them.

One version of the constitution even proclaimed that the emperor was a direct descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu, and therefore his person was sacred and inviolable. So he became the supreme god of state Shinto.

“Japan is the country of the gods,” people were inspired, “and the kamikaze (wind of the gods) will blow where there is disaster.” The first detachments of kamikaze pilots were formed on October 20, 1944 on the basis of naval aviation units, in which every one was ready to sacrifice their lives for their country.

Most of the young people were captured by this atmosphere of blind faith and unquestioning obedience. Everyone was ready to die for the emperor. But, fortunately, many did not manage to anticipate their desire in life. For the fact that they were not given such an opportunity, they were only grateful in the future.

And what about politics and religion?

Perhaps you, dear reader, will ask, but what does politics, war and even religion have to do with it? And the connection is direct. Where there are large funds, there will also be those who want to put them in their pocket. These can be petty crooks, as in our country in the nineties, or bigger fish, for example, entire criminal gangs.

From here, many yakuza clans appear in Japan. However, the most big fish- this can be said to be dishonest representatives of the authorities: governors, mayors and crooked deputies of these personalities. Who became the leader of the pack in ancient times or even now in animal packs, who has the right to choose the female first? Strongest. Exactly the same rules apply in our supposedly “human” world, the world of democracy and “equality”. Although they are hidden under a veil of pathos, glamor, lies and empty words, the rules of human behavior in society are determined precisely by this, or, more precisely, by force.

Strength, on the other hand, may not necessarily be physical; strength should be understood as the advantages that a person has over other members of society. It can be money, intelligence, cunning, necessary acquaintances, etc.

But what about religion? A person throughout his life is always looking for something better, looking for happiness. What if not true god can bring this happiness and contentment to life? However, in the world, religion can be said to be used not to build happiness, but to control humanity. Not exactly as intended, of course. This is where it comes from a large number of religions. False faith has always been a very effective tool, a weapon in the hands of deceitful and corrupt dictators, which has brought very good results. However, it was truly good, of course, not for everyone, but only for those who stood at the helm of this faith. Was it good for the kamikaze pilots, who were happy to give their lives so that the “divine” emperor Hirohito would get another island or a piece of Russia, for example, in his hands? I don't think it was false joy. Fanatical. But it worked.

And who, friends, will be the largest and most powerful "bandit" in any country? Of course, these are heads of government. And who will be able to punish, defeat or even completely destroy very strong criminals, for example, the Right Sector criminal group, which is now operating on the territory of Ukraine, and has already been recognized as extremist in Russia? Who can resist them? Batman, the young reader will say, only Batman can do this! But no, just the same, the government, endowed with the appropriate authority, is doing very well with this task.

Their strength is not expressed in the physical plane, but is measured by power. Full power. It is they who can afford to kill a person with impunity, take someone else's and at the same time remain clean in the eyes of their people. Look at Ukraine. They do what they want, but no one can punish the perpetrators, for some reason. Draw your own conclusions, dear reader.

Sony had very great opportunities, as well as large turnovers of capital. Where there is money, there will be those who need it, as we have learned. In addition, Akira Morita himself, the founder of the company, does not hide the fact that they had a fairly strong support in the face of the Japanese government. This will be described below.

During the service, Morita tried to reason logically. Akira Morita was warmly received at the military facility where he served. The object was located in the tropical part of Japan, where they often came to shoot films. The enemy did not even guess what could be there military base. That is why Morita said the following words to his subordinates:

Navy regulations require us to jump up whenever an alarm is sounded, put on our uniforms and run to the fire extinguishers, but since the possibility of this place being bombed is almost impossible, I will not wake you even if an air attack sounds.

Everyone loved these words. Who wants to wake up every day at 3 am with an alarm? The good attitude of subordinates was, if not quite a legal method, but it was won.

Someone, probably, in his soul opposed these inhuman orders, and there were many such people, but it was dangerous to show your displeasure. Those who disagreed were "reeducated" in special camps, and those who continued to resist were sent to the most difficult work. All leftists and communists were thrown into prison.

However, after 1945, when the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were dropped atomic bombs, Emperor Hirohito admitted defeat in the war, and in an instant he turned from a "divine" and allegedly invincible ruler into a mere mortal.

When the emperor spoke to the people and made a trip around the country after the war, acting as a symbol of the nation, the revered father of the country, and not God, he began to return to the people common sense. Now that the war was over, it seemed that the country had suffered a gigantic natural disaster.

I remember that before leaving for vacation, I announced to my comrades and officers that it was possible that the war would end while I was away. And if the command of the Navy, orders us to commit mass suicide. In that case, I will not return and will not carry out the last order with them.
This was not a joke at all, and an officer in the Imperial Japanese Navy probably shouldn't have said that to his superiors. However, I couldn't help but say it.

Secrets of Morita and Ibuki. Deals with the Japanese government

Masaru Ibuka and Akira Kurosawa made Sony together. The first acquaintance between them took place at a military facility where Morita served. Masaru Ibuka was a freelance electronics engineer. At that time, he already had his own company with 1,500 employees. Masaru was 13 years older than Akira.

While still a student, Masaru Ibuka defended his first patents. Classmates said that he was just fantasizing original ideas He was already considered a genius back then.

Then in the life of Ibuki there was a graduation work, which was recognized as an invention and even received a prize at the World Exhibition in Paris. The young inventor immediately received an invitation from a company that produces photosensitive materials. Fascinated by optics and electronics, by the beginning of World War II, Ibuka founded his own company, which was engaged in the development of equipment commissioned by the Japanese military department.

At the Japan Precision Instruments Company's office in Yokosuko, Ibuka and his assistants built instruments based on infrared sensors developed by Masaru himself.

Almost immediately after demobilization, Akira received a letter from his former physics teacher, who had helped Akira with advice during his college years. He asked Morita to come to Tokyo to work at the Technological University.

His problems were the lack of competent teachers. He invited Morita persistently and not in vain as it turned out. Morita accepted his mentor's invitation and decided to move to Tokyo. This was the only opportunity that allowed me to do physics.

Even when Akira Morita was at home, he managed to restore contact with Ibuka. He wrote that he was opening a new laboratory in Tokyo. After receiving the consent of the parents to move, Morita left.

While in Nogano, listening to shortwave radio broadcasts, Morita realized that the war was lost. That's why Morita talked to Ibuka about things to do in peacetime.

Ibuki's great quality was his acquaintances and connections. His son-in-law was the Deputy Prime Minister of Japan, Tamon Maeda. What is most interesting is that the prime minister turned up dead immediately after the end of the war. Official version- suicide. So it was Tamon Maeda who was the secret source of information for Masara Ibuki.

Ibuki's company was called Nippon Sokuteiki, or Japanese Precision Instrument Company, and its factory in Nagano Prefecture employed 1,500 people to manufacture small mechanical components that controlled the frequency of vibrations in radar instruments.

These components were supposed to vibrate at a frequency of exactly 1 kilohertz, and Ibuki came up with an ingenious idea: hire music students with a keen ear to check the accuracy of these elements by comparing the latter with a simple tuning fork that makes a thousand oscillations per second. Lonely, that was before the war. Now the situation was completely opposite.

Ibuki then had rather meager financial resources and all his resources fit in his pocket.

Noibuki, a small group of enthusiasts, held meetings in the oppressive atmosphere of a burned-out department store and spent many weeks trying to figure out what the new company should do in order to raise money and put it into circulation.

The first product of the new company was to be an electric rice cooker. However, although there have been many prototypes, its production was not fully established. It was a simple wooden vat, at the bottom of which spiral electrodes were laid.

Maeda had a friend at Japan's largest newspaper, the Asahi Shimbun, and that man, Ryuzo Kaji, ran a regular section called the Blue Pencil. In those days, the Asahi Shimbun was printed on only one sheet due to a shortage of newsprint. An article published on October 6, 1945 provided valuable assistance to the new company.

By a happy coincidence, Akira bought this October 6 issue of the newspaper. Realizing that Ibuka would need help, he immediately wrote him a letter saying that he was ready to help him in a new business and provide support. And most importantly, he wants to meet him in Tokyo.

Ibuka, in his reply letter, immediately warned that he was in a rather meager position and that he paid his employees out of his own pocket, that is, he worked at a loss. Having warned a friend, he nevertheless invited him and wrote that he would be happy to introduce him to a new company.

Since Akira understood his friend's financial situation and that it would be difficult for Ibuka to pay him his full salary, he still continued to work as a teacher at the institute. Thanks to the salaries of the teachers, Akira and Ibuka were already able to make ends meet.

Ibuka and I talked for a long time about starting our own company - we both thought about it shortly after our first meeting - and in March 1946 we decided to finally do it when we thought everything through.

Morita, working as a teacher and receiving a salary from the state, began to work for Ibuki on a part-time basis, still continuing to think about creating his own company.

In Japan, it was considered a very serious matter to take a son, especially the eldest, from home and family, and place him in new family or into a new business, as in our case. Traditionally in Japan, the eldest son in the family was responsible for family affairs after the death of the father and had to fulfill his duties. Morita was prepared just for this.

I really moved to another family and took on other, completely different obligations.

After meeting Morita's parents, Ibuka and Maeda told his father about the new venture and their plans, adding that they absolutely needed Akira in this new endeavor. Akira's father was ready for such a request. He saw that the son did not have a strong desire for the family business - the production of alcohol. He let him go. Akira's place was taken by his younger brother.

Months after leaving work, Akira Morita still continued to receive payroll notices. What is most interesting, the salary, thanks to the monthly allowances for inflation, increased. Akira and Ibuka were very pleased with the funds, as the money served as at least some kind of support.

I was happy with this subsidy as long as it was paid to me, because in those days our company was not yet distinguished by financial success.

Morita and Ibuka officially registered the Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo, later renamed Sony, on May 7, 1946.

In those days, they were financially able to make ends meet with motors and pickups that were unmatched on the market at the time.

The economy in Japan was so depressed that even donkey-drawn carts could be seen on the streets of the city.

During the war, German-made wire tape recorders were popular, and Ibuka set out to produce a completely new product for Japan, the wire magnetic tape recorder. Tohoku University in northern Japan even conducted scientific experiments to produce magnetized steel for these tape recorders.

Ibuka found a supplier for this steel wire, Sumitomo Metals, but the company showed no greater interest in the small company. So I had to forget about the idea of ​​producing sound recording equipment. But only for a while. Morita and Ibuka more than made up for it by creating the first audio tape recorder and the first Walkman portable audio player a few decades later.

However, it would be strange if Akira Morita and Masaru Ibuka were constantly in a black hole of financial loss. The first success was achieved after the Japanese decided to revive the Japanese broadcasting company NHK - the Japanese equivalent of the BBC. They needed new equipment, such as mixers and other broadcast equipment. Ibuka was very familiar with this kind of technique.

Coincidentally or not, influential acquaintances of Ibuki appeared here again. His friend Shigeo Shima was in charge of repairing the damage caused to NHK machinery.

When Sima arrived at the shack on Gotenyama - the office of Morita and Ibuki's company, the general with whom he arrived was struck by the beggarly environment and primitiveness. He even demanded that sand containers be placed in every room to prevent a fire.
Recommendations to the American general who was responsible for all this did their job. The contract was given to Ibuka.

Exposing the lies and the whole truth about the founding of Sony

And now, dear friends, let's take a closer look at some of the details of the founding of Sony. Let's open just the same facts, which have been freely available for a long time, and besides, they are described by one of the co-founders of the company in memoirs.

Akira Morita writes in his book Sony: Made in Japan that Masara Ibuki's son-in-law was Tamon Maeda. And Tamon Maeda was the Deputy Prime Minister of Japan. In turn, if you read about the prime minister, you can find out that after the Second World War, this prime minister was recognized as a traitor and committed suicide. This already involuntarily suggests the thought that they had something there that was not quite the way they told us.

If we draw conclusions from this, then it is quite logical that the deputy should know about all the important affairs of his boss. And this deputy or assistant to the prime minister was just Tamon Maeda, who got out of this whole story already alive, which is important, but also free and not declared an enemy of the state.

When Akira Morita went to his father in order to get permission to continue the business he had begun, he did not come alone. Along with him came Masaru Ibuka and Tamon Maeda. If we take into account that Ibuki and Morita had very influential acquaintances from the highest strata of power, then in fact it becomes quite logical how they were able to sell their equipment to almost all countries of the world.

Akira's father had his own sachery, the equivalent of a winery in Europe. In addition, the company is not small. The Morita family had a virtual monopoly in the pre-war and post-war years in the production and sale of sake throughout Japan. Sake is an analogue of our vodka, and we can say they liked to drink vodka just like sake in Japan. Akira's grandfather even managed to erect a monument as a prominent figure for all this.

Therefore, it is quite logical why one of the first people in the state, namely Tamon Maeda, went to ask Morita's father for permission to fully involve his son in new company. The situation would be approximately the same if the Prime Minister of our country, Dmitry Medvedev, went to negotiate with Abramovich so that he would give his son permission for a new activity.

And of course, how can a new firm do business if all the company's transactions are controlled by the second person in the state - Dmitry Medvedev? Of course everything will be great!

Yes, Sony has done a lot for the modern world, the first portable player, the first color TV, CDs, and so on. But Sony doesn't need to be compared to startups that didn't have a powerful hand behind them to push them and invest quite heavily in them.

They just had it all! That is why we can see now, and even a few decades ago we saw such a large amount of high-quality professional and home multimedia equipment.

When watching videos on YouTube, you can often come across an offer to watch a video of a certain Sonya Esman. She has over 1.5 million subscribers to her channel.

If you are interested in learning more about this such a popular person, but you do not want to watch the video, just read this article. You will also find out what is the reason for such popularity of the blogger.

Sony Yesman's channel appeared back in 2011. Then she was only 16 years old, and she was a schoolgirl.

The girl is from Voronezh, but lives in Canada, in the city of Toronto. Her parents immigrated there when she was 5 years old.

Sonya herself says that she belongs to the middle class, and not at all from a wealthy family. Compared to the surrounding youth, she even feels poor.

The first videos were devoted mainly to beauty - cosmetics, clothes, make-up, hairstyles.

For example, a girl shows what she wears, how she dyes and curls her hair. She also shows viewers many of her purchases, mostly cosmetics, and says whether she liked this or that thing or not.

It should be noted that Sony Yesman also has an English-language channel, but it is not as popular as the Russian-language one.

What is the reason for such attention from this audience? What is so special about this girl? After all, there are many other bloggers, and, in particular, "beauty bloggers", that is, those whose channels are dedicated to beauty, fashion and style.

The question of the popularity of Sonya Yesman is often discussed in the comments to the videos. Indeed, in fact, she does nothing special: she does not reveal any great secrets of beauty, usually talking about what everyone already knows, or about what can be easily learned from the Internet.

It turns out that she "hooked" the audience precisely as a person, with her charisma.

Sonia's speech played a significant, and perhaps even the main, role here. The fact is that the girl speaks Russian only with her mother, and her main language is English, which she considers native. She has difficulty with the Russian language.

Paradoxically, but such a peculiar speech became her main "trick". Under each video, you can see a lot of comments, such as: "cute accent", "what a funny accent" and the like.

Her remarks often sound like a literal translation from English - as if made with the help of Google translator. In particular, the phrases: “I have had these shorts for 3 years”, “I'm going to corrupt the headphones”, “mangoes are covered with condoms”, etc. caused a lot of emotions among the public (the last phrase meant preservatives).

The audience also fell in love with Sonya's pet - a charming parrot named Pasha. He knows how to "dance" to songs, nod his head when they say "yes", loves to kiss, and is very attached to his mistress. With all this, the Pasha bird destroys the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bmany people about feathered pets.

In many comments, subscribers ask to show them a parrot, and express their affection for him. So, it is very possible that "Pashenka", as Sonya affectionately calls him, did not play last role in the girl's popularity.

As it was said, the channel began its existence as a "beauty" channel. However, Sonya soon realized that people were more interested in herself as a person, her daily life, affairs, rather than some kind of cosmetics and the like.

And she herself, as she says, this kind of blogging is more to her liking.

The girl began to talk about her diet (veganism), introduce us to her friends, and also “take us with her” to work and shopping.

As for work, Sonya has been working since school, acting in extras. Then she began to work as a model, as she has the necessary parameters.

The work of the model involves travel to different countries. However, even without this, the girl travels a lot for pleasure. And of course, he shoots videos about this, which the public especially likes.

We still remember what a great company Sony used to be and what an impact it had on our lives. Given its past achievements, it is hard to believe that the company has not made a profit for 4 years in a row, that this year, according to an official statement, the planned losses will double - to $ 6.4 billion, which today only 15% of its capital are net assets. (the ratio of borrowed to equity is 5.67), and its capitalization is four times less than ten years ago!

But until relatively recently, Sony was an innovative company and led the market. After the Second World War, it was Sony who created the transistor radio, which soon conquered the whole world. Under the leadership of one of its founders, Akio Morita, the company remained ahead technical progress, and its leaders devoted most of their working time to the search for how to apply its achievements for the benefit ordinary people. Driven by the idea not to occupy, but to create new markets, Sony played the role of a pioneer and for a long time took a leading position in the sector that we now call “consumer electronics”. Here are just a few of the company's accomplishments:

“Sony has improved solid-state radios to the point where they outperform tube-based radios. This has made available reliable and inexpensive quality sound.

- Sony has created a solid-state TV, instead of a lamp, - more reliable, functional and consuming less energy than its predecessor.

“Sony developed the Triniton TV tube, dramatically improving the quality of color reproduction, and thereby forced an entire generation of viewers to switch to this format.

“Sony was one of the pioneers of video technology, bringing the Betamax format to the market, and only then lost to JVC in the format war.

“Sony was a pioneer in camcorder recording, turning half the world into amateur filmmakers.

“Sony pioneered the consumer cultural market with the invention of the Walkman, which for the first time made it possible for people to take recorded music with them on compact cassettes.

“Sony created the Playstation, which was way ahead of Nintendo, and made a whole huge market out of home video games.

Few tech companies can boast a comparable success story. Eyewitnesses said that once the company's management devoted 85% of its time to issues related to research and development, 10% to personnel issues, and only the remaining 5% to finance. For Akio Morita, financial results were just results—the results of hard work to create new products and create new markets. If Sony did its job well, the results should have matched. And so it was.

By the mid-1980s, there was a panic in the US about the absolute dominance of Sony and other Japanese companies in world industrial production. And not only consumer electronics, - but also cars, motorcycles, kitchen appliances, steel - the number of such industries was constantly growing. Politicians have coined a name for Japanese competitors like the incredibly successful Sony - "Japan Corporation" - and have been constantly talking about how the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) effectively manages public resources in order to "knock out" American manufacturers from the market. While rising gas prices stifled the growth of US companies, Japanese manufacturers managed to turn new inventions (often American ones) into highly successful budget goods, and only increased sales and profits.

So what happened to Sony?

In the 1950s, consultant William Deming convinced Japanese leaders to focus on making things better, faster, and cheaper—even at the expense of innovation. Taking advantage of Japan's post-war dependence on foreign capital and foreign markets, this US citizen infected Japanese industry with the ideas of industrialization, as it was practiced in the 1940s - it is he who is credited with the initiative of the rapid and massive increase in the production of military equipment, which allowed the United States to defeat Japan.

Unfortunately, this obsession has left Japanese business leaders with little or no skills to develop and innovate in any other area. As time passed, Sony became a hostage to the passion for the development of industrial products, forgetting the need to develop new markets.

The Vaio computers, as good as they were, made little use of the technology born in the depths of Sony. The company had to get involved in a war with Dell, HP and Lenovo, its success became dependent on the game to reduce the cost / price of production of computers, and not on the development of new models. Sony has developed a clearly industrial-oriented strategy for itself, focusing on processes and volumes of production, instead of trying to create something unique and new that is head and shoulders above the competition.

In the field of mobile phones, Sony entered into a partnership with Ericsson, subsequently buying it out entirely. Consumers again saw neither new technologies nor an attempt to create a device that stood out from the competition. Instead, Sony has focused on increasing production volumes, as well as beating Nokia, Motorola and Samsung products on price and features. With no consumer or technological advantage, Samsung, which manufactures its phones outside of Japan, has left Sony with its industrial strategy far behind at the expense of lower costs.

When Sony broke new ground with the introduction of Blu-ray technology, its strategy remained the same: first find a way to sell as many devices as possible using the new format. Therefore, the company did not sell the Blu-Ray technology to anyone. In the same way, it behaved in the audio file market by developing its own audio encoding format, applicable only to devices manufactured by Sony. In the information economy, this approach could not suit consumers, so Blu-Ray turned out to be a loss-making undertaking, uninteresting to the market, and the same fate awaited the now closed series of Sony digital players.

We observe a similar picture in almost all areas of the company's business. For example, in the production of televisions, Sony has lost its technological advantage, once won thanks to the Trinitron picture tubes. In the flat-panel segment, Sony predictably - and with predictably disastrous results - applied its industrial strategy, trying to beat competitors by increasing volumes and reducing costs. But since these competitors could use the resources of countries with cheap labor and capital, Sony has already lost $ 10 billion in this market over the past 8 years. And despite this, the company is not going to give up and plans to stick to its policy.

Sony's current leadership is full responsibility for maintaining this losing strategy.

Under Morita, new product development was at the forefront, and industrial age tactics were used to drive down costs. Sony executives who joined the company later were already trained differently: they came to implement the industrial strategy. In their minds, new products and new markets took a subordinate place. They were convinced that if Sony had a strong enough gross and managed to cut costs enough, sooner or later it would win the competition. And without any innovation.

By 2005, Sony reached the climax of this strategy by placing a non-Japanese in charge of the company. Sir Howard Stringer earned his reputation as the head of Sony's US subsidiary, who, in perfect accordance with the letter of the industrial strategy, cut the company's 30,000-strong workforce by 9,000 (that is, by almost a third). For Stringer, Sony's main course of development was not about innovation, technology, or new products and markets.

In Stringer's version, industrial strategy meant an obsession with cutting costs. While Morita's management meetings were 85% about innovation and technology marketplaces, Stringer brought a "modern" approach to Sony's business. Sony's leadership began to be carried out in strict accordance with the MBA recipes of the 1960s. Focus on a specific limited product range to increase output, try to avoid costly development of technological innovations in favor of mass production of others, reduce assortment renewal, focus efforts on increasing product life, extending equipment depreciation, and constantly look for ways to reduce costs. To spare nothing for the sake of this last goal, and to reward those who distinguished themselves - including generous bonuses.

That is why during Stringer's short tenure at the head of the company, Sony did not create a single high-profile new product. Rather, his reign will go down in history in two waves. massive layoffs— and this in a company (and country) historically committed to a lifetime employment policy.

Sony's new head just said he's going to respond to ongoing losses - you guessed it - new series layoffs. This time, as they say, we will talk about 10,000 employees, that is, about 6% of the total staff of the company. New CEO, Mr. Hirai, who gained experience in doing business under the direct supervision of Stringer, showed that he was not going to abandon the industrial strategy.

EndSony

Japanese equity laws are different from US and European ones. Local companies often have much more high level debt. Sometimes they can even operate with a negative indicator own funds— which in almost all other countries formally means bankruptcy. So it is unlikely that Sony will initiate bankruptcy proceedings in the foreseeable future.

But is it worth investing in Sony? After 4 years of losses, given its management's belief in industrial strategy and its faith in the MBA's wisdom to focus on numbers over markets, there's no reason to believe Sony's sales or earnings trajectory will change direction anytime soon.

Being for Sony employee, which is threatened with another wave of layoffs, would you want to work for this company? A business that systematically imitates external trends in product development, that pays almost no attention to innovation, and vice versa thinks only about cutting costs, is unlikely to become an interesting workplace. Especially if he almost does not offer career prospects.

It will also be of little interest to suppliers - after all, they already know that each new meeting with them will be devoted to discussing ways to further reduce costs - again, and again, and again.

Once upon a time, Sony was a company that you wanted to follow. She was an innovator, opening up new markets over and over again, much like Apple does today. But thanks to an industrial business strategy and a leadership style borrowed from outdated MBA programs, it's time to say goodbye to it. Sell ​​Sony shares.

Sony Corporation, the world leader in the production of electronics, appeared on the photographic equipment market relatively recently, but has already managed to take a very strong position on it. In general, this is not surprising, because rapid technological breakthroughs and risky marketing moves are a common tactic of the company, which was formed at the dawn of its activity.

Sony's founding year is considered to be 1946, when former colleagues in the defense enterprise Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka met in Tokyo bombed by American aircraft. Friends drank sake, congratulated each other on having survived the war, and immediately decided to organize some kind of production.

The initial capital of the partners was small: 84,500 yen, or $ 375 at the exchange rate of that time, most of which Morita borrowed from his father, a successful distiller. This money was enough to ensure that on May 7 on the second floor of a dilapidated shopping center earned Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo - "Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Company", whose staff consisted of 20 people (all these people were former employees of the same defense plant).

Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka, founders of Sony

First tape recorder

Despite the high-profile name, the company produced far from the most high-tech products: rice braziers, voltmeters and heating pads, which had to be peddled. With the proceeds, Morita and Ibuka bought a variety of foreign electrical appliances that flooded into the country with the arrival of American troops. Most great impression produced an American tape recorder for engineers with a metal magnetic tape on which radio programs could be recorded. Quickly realizing that expensive and heavy metal plate- not the most successful basis for magnetic coating, friends set out to develop a more advanced carrier. As a result, they thought of cutting a sheet of Whatman paper into narrow strips and applying a thin layer of magnetic paint on them. A simple technology for the production of light and flexible magnetic tape was immediately patented, and in 1950 the Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Company released the first Japanese G-Type tape recorder.

The first Japanese tape recorder G-Type weighed almost half a centner

Assembling tape recorders at the Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Company, 1950s

The creation turned out to be complex, cumbersome and very expensive. It would hardly have spread if not for an unexpected order from the district court: tape recorders were then very rare even in the United States, and the Japanese judicial department, suffering from an eternal shortage of stenographers, was glad to get domestic voice recording devices. The sale of 24 tape recorders at once brought the company 1 million yen and self-confidence. The following year, the company released a more advanced model of the H tape recorder, which weighed only 13 kg. Morita immediately sent the designer of the device, Masao Kurahashi, on a lecture tour around the country - to talk about new recording technologies in educational institutions. And he began to convince officials from the Ministry of Education of the need to install tape recorders in schools. In the end, under the pressure of Morita and the impressed teachers, the officials gave in, and the company received another mass order for its products. And only the third model of the tape recorder, P, became a real bestseller without any government orders - not least due to an attractive price and significantly facilitated management.

The first radio receivers on transistors enjoyed unprecedented popularity

Transistors from America

In March 1952, Masaru Ibuka traveled to the United States to study the use of tape recorders in Everyday life, and at the same time see how their production is established in American companies. The main result of this trip was the purchase of a license from Western Electric to manufacture transistors. These semiconductor devices are designed to amplify electric current and its controls were invented in Germany before the war, but the engineers still had a vague idea of ​​where exactly they could be used. While the Americans were considering the possibility of using transistors in military equipment, Ibuka designed on their basis ... an innocent household radio. Unlike their bulky counterparts, the transistor model was the size of a thick book and could run not only on mains, but also on batteries. TR-2 - this is the name given to the new device - was the first truly portable radio in the world.

Presentation of the U-matic VTR home video recorder prototype

Micro TV Sony TV5-303

Inexpensive, lightweight receivers that you could take with you anywhere became wildly popular, and Ibuka decided to expand the scope of transistors. In 1960, he designed a small portable television with an 8-inch screen based on them, and five years later, the first video recorder capable of recording television programs on magnetic tape appeared. Both of these devices came out under a new brand, the name of which sounded short and noble: Sony.

The birth of sound

The "Telecommunications Engineering Company" finally changed its complex name in 1958. Akio Morita, who by that time had become responsible for promoting the company's products, assured, not without reason: “In order to gain a foothold in the global market, we need a different name - simple, short, easy to pronounce and memorable. And instead of hieroglyphs, you need to use the international Latin alphabet. For example, Americans could not pronounce not only Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo, but even the abbreviation Totsuko - and selling a product manufactured by a company with an unpronounceable name in the USA would be, to put it mildly, not easy. At first, Morita and Ibuka wanted to shorten the name of their offspring to three letters - TTK, but then problems would inevitably arise in the domestic market. After all, TTK is very similar to TKK, the Japanese railway company. And then, rummaging through dictionaries, the friends fished out the Latin word sonus - “sound”, which, in their opinion, ideally reflected the direction of the company. Slightly modernizing it, Morita and Ibuka came up with the word sony, which was destined to become international name companies.

The modern Sony logo was approved in 1973.

The first Sony logos, which appeared on radios in 1955, were an inscription made in a dynamically slanted font. Two years later, the font was replaced with a more calm and readable one, and since then only the thickness of the letters has changed in the style of the word Sony. The last version of the logo that we now see on Sony products was approved in 1973.

The habit of surprise

In 1968, Sony established its first overseas subsidiary, Sony UK Ltd. in the UK, in 1971 introduced the world's first professional cassette recording system, and in 1972 received its first (of fifteen subsequent) Emmy music awards. They started talking about the Japanese corporation, both competitors and students of management and marketing departments of major universities began to understand the reasons for its success.

Akio Morita introduces another Sony mini TV, 1960s

Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita during the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of Sony, 1996

Akio Morita himself called the constant desire to choose large goals and set ambitious scientific and technical tasks the main prerequisites for such a dynamic development. In his book Made in Japan, he gives a simple outline of this tactic: “Scene 1: A now-familiar product (transistor radio, portable TV, consumer VCR) is not yet on the market. Scene 2: experts say that no one needs such a product. Why make a small receiver if big sound better? Why do you need a small screen TV in large rooms of American homes? Who needs a VCR when there is an abundance of interesting and varied programs on numerous television programs?

“Scene 3: the leader of the company clearly explains the philosophy of the novelty - the transistor receiver will follow the owner to any place; Walkman, the world's first pocket audio player, will replace the rumble and noise big city the musical environment that you have chosen yourself; The VCR eliminates the tyranny of the TV companies that force everyone to watch programs only when they are broadcast. Scene 4: Sony engineers get down to business and decide difficult task, the production team ensures the impeccable quality, and the sales departments ensure the resounding market success of the new product.”

Sony has repeatedly introduced advanced video recording formats. Largely thanks to her, such a thing as "high-definition video" appeared.

From video to photo

Using the tactics described by Morita, by the mid-1970s, Sony had become the world's largest manufacturer of a variety of electronics, from small appliances to computers and professional stereos. Not least thanks to Sony, video technologies began to actively develop, almost completely replacing movie cameras from the amateur market. And the high-resolution video recording systems developed by the company have had a significant impact even on cinema. However, the company for a long time did not pay attention to another profitable market segment - the production and sale of amateur photographic equipment. This omission was eliminated in 1981, when Sony made not just a breakthrough to the market, but a real revolution in photographic equipment, introducing the Mavica digital SLR camera (short for Magnetic Video Camera), from the appearance of which it is customary to count the history of modern digital photography. The CCD-sensor measuring 10 x 12 mm, which contained 0.28 megapixels, was responsible for image registration in this device. The images formed by the matrix were stored in analog NTSC video format on a special floppy disk, reminiscent of modern floppy disks. The disc was rewritable, it could fit up to 50 frames, there was also room for audio comments.

Sony Mavica, 1981

Technically, Mavica was a continuation of Sony's line of TV camcorders based on CCD matrices, but the result of its work was not a video stream, but static pictures, freeze frames that could be viewed on a TV or monitor screen. The rest of the Mavica was a full-fledged DSLR with a familiar viewfinder and an original mount for interchangeable lenses, presented simultaneously with the camera: 25mm f / 2, 50 mm f / 1.4 and zoom 16-65 mm f / 1.4.

Sony ProMavica MVC-2000 was supplied only to order, complete with a special drive

After making a lot of noise and joining the pioneers of digital photography, Sony calmed down and forgot about SLR cameras for more than twenty years. In 1986, the company introduced the large ProMavica MVC-2000 camera, equipped with a 0.38-megapixel 2/3-inch CCD sensor and a superb fixed f/1.4 48-288mm zoom lens. The model lost its mirror and pentaprism, and its design, and appearance, began to resemble a video camera even more - however, it was still a camera capable of working out shutter speeds in the range from 1/15 to 1/1000 s. The camera was supplied with a special portable disk drive for magnetic discs, making it easy to view the pictures taken on the TV screen. This model, very interesting for its time, costing $3395, never went on sale, but was supplied only to order as a touchstone, with the help of which it was supposed to study the demand for such devices.

Sony Mavica MVC-C1 and Canon RC-250 XapShot, 1988

Demand was low, and Sony experts, believing that the time for professional digital cameras not yet arrived, concentrated on developing a simpler and cheaper consumer model. The result of their efforts was the appearance in 1988 of two models at once - Mavica MVC-C1 Personal Camera and MVC-A10 Sound Mavica costing $230 and $350 respectively. Both cameras were equipped with 2/3-inch matrices with a resolution of 0.28 megapixels and fast lenses with a focal length of 15 mm. It was possible to shoot only at a ISO 80 value in the shutter speed range from 1/60 to 1/500 s. It was possible to record 25 photos on a magnetic disk, and the MVC-A10 Sound Mavica model also allowed a ten-second commentary to be written to each picture. The cameras turned out to be quite viable, but by no means revolutionary: in the same year, serial models similar in function and even design were released by Canon and Konica, and Pentax presented a prototype of a very similar EI camera.

Carl Zeiss optics were already on the first Cyber-shot, which appeared in 1996

cybersnapshots

In 1996, Sony released a digital camera of a very curious design: a module with a built-in flash and a 35 mm lens could rotate 180 degrees relative to the main body. It was a device of a completely new electronic formation, which emphasized its name - Sony Cyber-shot F1. Pictures with a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels were no longer recorded on a magnetic disk, but on a miniature memory card - and most importantly, they could be viewed immediately on a 1.8-inch display and, if some of them did not like, immediately delete. This model became the ancestor of the famous Cyber-shot family of cameras, thanks to which Sony became one of the leaders in the amateur photography market a few years later.

The 2-megapixel Cyber-shot F505 camera of an unusual design became the progenitor of all subsequent Sony “pseudo-SLRs”, up to the Cyber-shot R1 model

In 1999, the serious Cyber-shot F505 appeared, with a rather impressive Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar zoom lens that could move up or down relative to the camera body. To some extent, all subsequent “pseudo-SLRs” of the company, up to the 10-megapixel Cyber-shot R1, released in 2005, can be considered the evolution of this by no means compact camera. Everyone was waiting for the next step from the company, which had mastered the production of such serious devices, the release of a full-fledged digital SLR camera. But the precondition for this milestone In the history of Sony, an event literally shook the entire photo world: in February 2006, Konica Minolta announced its withdrawal from the photo market. It must be said that Konica and Minolta, which merged only in 2003, were considered the luminaries of Japanese photographic production. The first began to produce format cameras in the Japanese islands as early as the 19th century, the second began with the development of medium format photo systems, analogues of the German Rolleiflex, in the 1920s. Later, Konica concentrated on the production of rangefinder cameras, film, paper and photo printing systems, while Minolta was actively involved in the production of SLR cameras and optics, gaining the trust of not only amateurs, but also professional photographers worldwide. And at the beginning of 2006, the already united company KonicaMinolta suddenly announced the curtailment of photo production and the transfer of all technological developments in this area to Sony Corporation! The last addition was somehow lost in the shock experienced by the numerous adherents of the Minolta photosystem. But this news meant one thing: very soon they would have to spend considerable sums to switch to another system.

But before the general amazement had passed, in June of the same year, Sony introduced its 10-megapixel amateur SLR camera A100, and a year and a half later released the semi-professional model A700. In the characteristic angular design and the abundance of various mechanical control units of the new DSLRs, the Minolta heritage was felt. Otherwise, the cameras turned out to be by no means conservative: the engineers filled them with the most modern electronic systems, which made it possible to successfully fight for the most demanding consumer on the battlefields of the market. Simultaneously with the cameras that inherited from Minolta and the mount type, several Sony zoom lenses were presented, as well as a whole fleet of high-end optics from Carl Zeiss, the legendary German concern with which the Japanese corporation has been working closely since 1995. Today, Sony launches a variety of digital cameras with enviable regularity - from sleek compact models to semi-professional SLRs - and is about to try on the laurels of the most prolific and energetic camera manufacturer in the world.

Gadget manufacturers

Sony Corporation is a Japanese multinational conglomerate. Its diversified business focuses primarily on electrical engineering (TV, refrigerators, game consoles), as well as entertainment and financial services. The company can be called one of the leading manufacturers of electronic products for the consumer and professional markets. In the 2014 Fortune Global 500 ranking, Sony was in 105th place.

Sony Corporation is the business unit of the parent company Sony Group, responsible for the production of electronics. Four major operating segments - electronics (including video games, network services and medical business), motion pictures, music and finance - make Sony one of the most complete entertainment companies in the world.

Different divisions are responsible for different segments. Sony is one of the Top 20 leaders in the sale of semiconductors, and is also the third largest TV manufacturer in the world (after and).

The Sony corporate group focuses primarily on electronics manufacturing and financial services (such as the insurance and banking sectors). Its foundation is associated with the names of Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuki.

They chose the name "Sony" as a derivative of "sonus" (translated from Latin as "sound"), as well as from the word "sonny", which is English language means "sons" (in the early 50s in Japan, "sonny boys" meant presentable and intelligent young people).

By the way, the use of Latin letters in the name was very unusual for a Japanese company. It was Morita who insisted on such a name, demanding that it not be tied to any industry (despite the fact that many were opposed).

The future Japanese industrialist and co-founder of Sony, Masaru Ibuki, was born in 1908. He graduated from Waseda University in 1933, after which he got a job in a photochemical laboratory where films were processed. Following this, fate decreed that he entered the service of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

At that time the second World War, and Ibuka was a member of the Naval Research Committee. In 1946, he left the laboratory and the fleet, and founded a radio repair shop.

Akio Morita became the co-founder of the new enterprise.

At the same time, Masaru played essential role in licensing transistor technology to Sony in the 1950s. As a result, Sony was one of the first to use this technology for peaceful purposes. Ibuka was the firm's president for over twenty years, and then its chairman between the 71st and 76th.

In 1961 he was awarded the Medal of Honor with a blue ribbon, and in subsequent years also various orders and titles. Masaru received an honorary doctorate from Sophia University in Tokyo. He is the author of books on child psychology and learning.

Ibuka died in 1997 at the age of 89. He was posthumously awarded the Grand Ribbon of the Order of the Rising Sun.

Akio Morita, the future Japanese businessman and co-founder of Sony, was born in 1921 in Nagoya. His family was engaged in making miso, soy sauce and sake in the village of Kosugaya (now part of the city of Tokonoma) on the western coast of the Chita Peninsula in Aichi Prefecture from 1665.

Akio was the eldest of four children and was trained by his father so that he could later run the family business. However, Morita found his true calling in a completely different way thanks to his passion for physics and mathematics. He graduated from Osaka Imperial University in 1944 with a degree in physics.

During World War II, he also served in the Imperial navy Japan and worked for the benefit of the research committee, where he met Masaru Ibuka.

The Akio Morita family was Sony's largest shareholder and invested a lot of money, supporting it financially at an early stage. In 1950, the firm sold its first tape recorder in Japan; then came the turn of a pocket radio. Akio Morita was the initiator of many Sony inventions.

It was he who came up with the idea to give the radio a "pocket" format. In 1994, Morita stepped down as chairman of the company after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage. He was replaced by Norio Oga. Akio Morita was the author of books about schooling; also wrote an autobiography.

His most scandalous work was co-authorship with the politician S. Ishihara. In this paper, they criticized the American business world, and urged the Japanese to take an independent position in the conduct of their own affairs. These chapters were later removed from the English version of the book.

Like Ibuka, Akio Morita has received various medals and awards, including the Royal Society of Arts medal in 1982, the Legion of Honor two years later, and the Order of the Sacred Treasure from the Emperor of Japan in 1991.

In 1993, Morita received a British order of knighthood, and so on. He died in 1999 at the age of 78 from pneumonia. He was posthumously awarded the Grand Ribbon of the Order of the Rising Sun.

So, the Sony company has actually been leading its history since the Second World War, when its two founders met. In 1946, Masaru Ibuka opened an electronics store in a bombed-out Tokyo department store. The new firm had an initial capital of $530 and total eight employees.

The following year, Masaru was joined by his colleague, Akio Morita, and they formed a company called Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo.

It was this company that became the creator of the first Japanese cassette recorder (Type-G model). In the summer of 1955, the first Japanese transistor radio Sony TR-55 appeared. In 1958 the company's name was changed to Sony.

In 1975, Sony launched a new videocassette recording format, Betamax. Unfortunately, the following years were marked by the infamous "video format war". In the 80s, Sony supplied Betamax systems for VCRs, competing with JVC's VHS format.

In the end, VHS still managed to become the world standard, and Sony also used this format. However, it is worth noting the following fact: although Betamax can already be effectively considered an obsolete format, the professionally oriented Betacam format (based on Betamax) is still used, especially in the television industry, albeit in lesser degree in connection with the spread of digital technologies and high resolution.

In 1985 came the turn of Handycam products and the Video8 format, which became popular in the consumer market. Two years later, a new digital audio standard, 4 mm DAT, appeared.

In 1979, the company introduced the world's first portable music player, the Walkman, which supported compact audio cassettes. In 2004 Sony released Hi-MD. It was a format that allowed audio to be played back and recorded on the new 1 gigabyte Hi-MD discs.

In addition to this, the new format allowed the storage of computer files such as documents, videos, and photographs. It should be added that Sony, together with the S / PDIF format, was developed, as well as the SACD audio system. Subsequently, the consumer still preferred CDs. Other Sony products include disk storage and flash memory.

The current range of Sony Corporation includes a variety of consumer electronics, including portable audio and video players, computers, and so on.

In 2011, Sony, seeking to enter the tablet market, released its Sony Tablet series running Android.

Since 2012, products based on this platform began to enter the market under the Xperia brand (smartphones could also be attributed to them).

The company's product range also includes a wide range of digital cameras (including Cyber-shot models), televisions, semiconductors, and electronic components (image sensors, laser diodes, OLED panels, and so on). The produced image sensors are widely used in Sony digital cameras, tablet computers and smartphones.

The company also has businesses related to medicine, biotechnology and healthcare. In the fall of 2012, Sony announced a joint venture with Olympus to develop new surgical endoscopes. The following year, Sony Olympus Medical Solutions was created.

In 2014, the P5 venture (together with Illumina and M3) was established to support research and development.

The company successfully manufactures portable gaming equipment. By the way, the best-selling video game console of all time is the PlayStation 2. In 2014, a new technology was announced virtual reality for PlayStation 4.

Sony's mobile division is headquartered in the Japanese capital. It was founded in autumn 2001 as a joint venture with Ericsson. Sony acquired a stake in the Swedish firm in the winter of 2012.

In 2013, the flagship Xperia Z3 appeared. The smartphone was based on the Android platform and was equipped with a 5.2-inch display with Full HD resolution. The mobile device had a 3100 mAh battery, as well as a case with a high degree protection against moisture and dust.

Back in the early 90s, Ericsson collaborated with General Electric in the USA. They were called Ericsson Mobile Communications. This name was not chosen by chance, and primarily to make the company recognizable in the United States. The chips for their Ericsson phones were supplied by the Philips factory in New Mexico.

In 2000, a fire broke out at this facility, and production was suspended indefinitely. While we had already established supplies from alternative sources, we faced serious problems. For decades, this company has been in the mobile device market and has managed to achieve significant success.

As a result, there were numerous speculations about the possible sale of the mobile division, although the president of Ericsson himself denied this, noting that mobile phone is a specialized business. At that time, Sony was a minor player in the global device market, with a share of less than 1%. The final terms for the merger of the two companies were announced in the summer of 2001.

The strategy of the combined company included the release of new models with the function of digital photography, as well as other multimedia capabilities. To do this, Sony Ericsson has specially released several mobile devices with a camera and a color screen.

Despite the success of the sale of new products, the joint venture continued to suffer losses. In 2005, the K750i was introduced. The device had a 2 megapixel camera.

The W800i model has also become a notable device. It was the first phone in the Walkman series capable of playing music for up to 30 hours.

In 2007, the first 5-megapixel camera phone, the K850i, was released, followed by an 8-megapixel camera device the following year. At the 2009 exhibition, the company introduced the first device with a 12 megapixel camera - Satio.

It is known that in those years they also repeatedly became a sponsor of professional sports teams.

In 2011, Sony announced the acquisition of a stake in Swedish partner Ericsson for $1.47 bln. This buyout was approved by the European Union in 2012. Around the same time, the company decides to focus entirely on the production of smartphones, excluding the release of all other mobile devices.

To support the gaming industry, Sony is also buying out the Gaikai cloud service. The Sony logo was replaced with a new power button, a change that the consumer could clearly see after the new Xperia series mobile devices in 2013. The same year, the Z and ZL models were introduced. This was followed by the flagships Z1 and Z2. The Z3 was also announced in 2014.

Since 2012, all of the company's mobile products have been released as part of the Xperia line. The following year, a design known as "OmniBalance" appeared. Since 2014, more and more attention has been paid to high-end products, while the budget segment is almost completely ignored.

The company is also involved in the production of televisions and film products. Exists special unit called Sony Pictures Entertainment, as well as the record company Sony Music Entertainment - the second largest among the Big Four companies, the basis for the formation of which was the acquisition of CBS Records, as well as the buyout of Bertelsmann's share.

A subsidiary that develops and publishes video games is called Online Entertainment. There is also a label ATV Music Publishing. Interesting fact: The label owns most of the publishing rights to The Beatles.