SirHowardStringer
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Sony Chairman Howard Stringer to retire in June
After handing over the CEO reins of Sony to Kaz Hirai last year, current chairman Sir Howard Stringer is set to retire from his post this June at the firm's shareholder meeting, reports the Financial Times. According to the outlet, Stringer mentioned at a Japan Society lecture that the transition will let him pursue "new opportunities I've been presented with lately." Stringer didn't divulge what those opportunities are, but we're sure he'll have more time on his hands to play with a certain game console.
Sony confirms Kazuo Hirai as new President and CEO, replacing Howard Stringer
Sony has just confirmed Kazuo Hirai as its new CEO and President, validating rumors that have been swirling for a few weeks now. Outgoing CEO Howard Stringer, meanwhile, has been appointed Chairman of Sony's Board of Directors. The Hirai era officially begins April 1st, while Stringer will assume his new role sometime in June (until then, he'll remain executive chairman). Today's announcement, coming a day before Sony's earnings call, brings an end to more than a year's worth of speculation, though Hirai's selection hardly comes as a surprise, considering his recent string of promotions. In April, he was named Executive Deputy President; five months later, he was promoted to Sony Computer Entertainment Chairman. According to Stringer, in fact, Sony has been grooming Hirai since as early as 2009, when the Board began designing its succession plans. Kaz, he says, stood out from the crowd: Kaz is a globally focused executive for whom technology and the cloud are familiar territory, content is highly valued, and digital transformation is second nature. I believe his tough-mindedness and leadership skills will be of great benefit to the company and its customers in the months and years ahead. I look forward to helping Kaz in every way I can so that succession leads inevitably to success. It was my honor to recommend him to the Board for the positions of President and CEO, because he is ready to lead, and the time to make this change is now. Kaz, for his part, acknowledges that Sony is going through some "challenging" times at this juncture, but credits Stringer with steadying the ship, and seems clear-minded about the future. "The path we must take is clear: to drive the growth of our core electronics businesses - primarily digital imaging, smart mobile and game; to turn around the television business; and to accelerate the innovation that enables us to create new business domains," the 51-year-old PSN architect explained. "The foundations are now firmly in place for the new management team and me to fully leverage Sony's diverse electronics product portfolio, in conjunction with our rich entertainment assets and growing array of networked services, to engage with our customers around the world in new and exciting ways." Click past the break for Sony's full press release.
Sony CEO casually mentions he's supplying cameras to Apple
We were tempted to call it an April Fools' joke, but it seems the story's true: Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer reportedly let slip that his company is producing cameras for the next batch of iPhones and iPads during a public interview with the Wall Street Journal. Traditionally, Apple's sourced its sensors from OmniVision, including the delightfully backside-illuminated 5 megapixel CMOS unit you'll find in the iPhone 4, but since Sony too has BSI tech and OmniVision has reportedly encountered delays, your next portable Apple product might house a Sony Exmor R sensor like the one we admired on the Xperia Arc. Mind you, that may not end up actually happening, because of the context in which Sir Howard revealed the news -- according to 9 to 5 Mac, he said that the factory producing sensors for Apple was affected by the Japanese tsunami. Oh well.
Sony said to be looking for new President to lighten Sir Howard's load
Sir Howard Stringer is a busy man. Currently holding the Chairman, CEO and President titles at Sony, the man's in charge of one of the vastest empires in the history of vastness, which is probably why the company's now said to be looking for someone to succeed him at one of those posts. Bloomberg's reporting that Sony is having internal discussions about appointing a new President, with Kaz Hirai and Hiroshi Yoshioka identified as the names at the top of the pile. The pair are currently responsible for handling one half each of Sony's broad consumer electronics portfolio and it's notable that the Japanese giant seems to be looking for its next great leader from the hardware side of the business. If this speculation does bear fruit, expect the next President to deputize Stringer in the short-term and to eventually succeed him as top banana when the current ruler decides to hang up his cornflower-blue tie.
CE-Oh no he didn't!: Sony's Sir Howard says 'when you beat Apple, you're dominating'
Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer has always been delightfully direct, and he didn't hold back at Google's I/O conference: talking about Sony Ericsson with Eric Schmidt during the Google TV launch, Sir Howard noted that the Xperia X10 is the best-selling handset in Japan, and that "when you beat Apple, you're dominating -- it's the new definition." Strong words from a gadget titan -- we'll leave it to you to debate their veracity.
Sony staying conservative with Reader device, aware of current tablet mania
Sony's Sir Howard Stringer played the tease at today's Reader content partnership presser, stating that while Sony could make the device into a multimedia tablet, it would rather wait and see if consumers warm up to current devices. Stringer's watching if people find the form factor "comfortable and helpful" before Sony starts "plowing on a thousand apps" or building a "Vaio Reader." We don't really know how much e-reader acceptance points to the demand for color multimedia tablets, but in regards to the (non-existant, ever-present) Apple Tablet, Stringer says "we're all working on variations of the same thing." Hopefully we'll figure out what exactly he means by that before we grow old and start reading books or something horrible like that.
Sony CEO Howard Stringer on music: "If we had gone with open technology from the start, I think we probably would have beaten Apple"
We've always had a soft spot for Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer, and it sounds like the old man's doing more than cajoling Tom Hanks into telling jokes following his consolidation of power: in a lengthy and illuminating interview with Nikkei Electronics Asia, Sir Howard pledged that Sony would use more open standards in the future, saying "If we had gone with open technology from the start, I think we probably would have beaten Apple" in the music market. That's a pretty bold statement to be making in hindsight -- especially since we're pretty sure the Connect Player and SonicStage would have still driven people screaming into the arms of iTunes -- but it's pretty heartwarming to hear from the head of a company just as famous for an endless array of funky proprietary standards as it is the Walkman. You want to make us feel even warmer and fuzzier, Howie? "We can no longer say that we're right and our customers are wrong. We can't build only what we want to build." Wow -- sounds like the start of a whole new Sony. We'll see if Sir Howard can actually pull off what sounds like a major change in his company's culture, but for right now we'd recommend hitting the read link and taking in the whole interview, cause it's a good one.
Sony CEO expects expansion in PS3 connectivity, PSN
Last month, an update to the PS3 firmware allowed the PSP Remote Play function to reach across the boundless expanse that we call "the internet" -- but the PS3's connective capabilities aren't going to stop there, according to a recent statement from Sir Howard Stringer, Sony's CEO and resident knight. During a speech in Tokyo, Sir Stringer announced the company's plans to enable connections from the system to a number of electronic devices, including certain mobile phones, as part of their up-and-coming three year plan.Stringer then announced his company's intention to expand the PlayStation Network service over the next fiscal year, putting them "in the direct line of fire with Apple and Microsoft," perhaps heralding a restructuring of their online gaming service, or the addition of some form of an online music market through the PSN service (ala iTunes). Or maybe, he literally meant "in the direct line of fire," meaning the three mega-corporations will establish dominance in a three-way, Old West style gunfight. We heard Steve Jobs puts an ace in his deck every time he kills a man.
Sir Howard proclaims with PS3's help, Sony "is on a comeback"
The always cheery Sir Howard Stringer awoke from his six-month hibernation tossed a few nuggets of positivity to investors at the annual shareholders meeting in Tokyo. First, he announced the company is on the road to recovery and held the PS3 in high regard as "vital" for a successful Sony future. Pronouncing that "production problems have been solved" he went on to ease investors likely nervous from the last earnings report by reassuring them of the cyclical nature of console profits. "We always lost money in the hardware, initially and recover that money gradually," he said. And in downplaying his non-Japanese citizenship, he beat his chest and exclaimed, "I am not a foreigner. I am a warrior." Uh-huh. Perhaps if he wore a headdress and performed a tribal dance, his warrior statement would've been more compelling instead of just ... silly.
Ken Kutaragi officially throws in the towel, retires from SCE
The father of the PlayStation, Ken Kutaragi, has officially retired from Sony Computer Entertainment. Previously, following a corporate re-shuffle, Mr. Kutaragi stepped down as CEO of SCE, replaced by Kaz Hirai. Now, Ken Kutaragi is relinquishing his Sony duties further, stepping down as SCE's Chairman and Group Chief Executive while remaining on board with SCE in an advisory role. Perhaps Sir Howard Stringer can assist with Ken Kutaragi's early retirement by quickly issuing restraining orders against him on all things Sony PlayStation-related. After all, earlier reports show "Krazy Ken" Kutaragi clearly doesn't know "when to say when" as he proceeded to inflate the PS3's budget until it exploded in everyone's collective faces, causing fallout from a few layoffs to a huge quarterly loss. Except now without Kutaragi in the limelight, how are we going to get such beautiful mock-ups of the PlayStation grill?
Ce-Oh no he didnt! Part XXXI - Stringer says if PS3 fails, it'll be due to the high price
The veritable genius of economic theory that he is, Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer has finally figured out a flaw in his grand scheme of world domination via the PS3: that hefty pricetag. "If we fail, it is because we positioned PS3 sales as the Mercedes of the videogame field," said Stringer. "PS3 is a different audience and it can be whatever it wants – a home server, game device, even a computer." It seems odd that he'd say the PS3 is limited to a different audience and that it can be "whatever it wants" in the same sentence, but who are we to judge? Stringer also praised the Wii as "a wonderful device," and stated that it "has a different target audience" than that of the PS3. Nothing new there, and his statements on the format war were also unsurprising: "We are selling 3-to-1 versus to them," he said. "At some point Blu-ray will take over based on ... this support." Good to see some things just never change.
Sony's Stringer reveals "obsession" over Xbox 360
Making it perfectly clear that even the mightiest CEOs sit up at night fretting over their competitors' products, his highness Sir Howard Stringer recently confessed to having an "obsession" with Microsoft's Xbox 360 after inadvertently mentioning the PS3-rival in an interview with the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg. Stringer's admission followed what can only be described as a classic Freudian slip, in which he substituted the words "Xbox 360" for "X-Men III" when bragging about the success of Sony Pictures' The Da Vinci Code. After some prodding from Mossberg, Stringer even went on to pay Microsoft founder Bill Gates something of a backhanded compliment, admiring Gates' ability to put a positive spin on setbacks like the constantly-slipping Vista release date while still managing to take shots at the PS3 for its own delayed arrival. So, the obvious question that now presents itself is: who would win in a fight, Gates or Stringer? Comments are on and awaiting your thoughtful analysis.
