Home > Sony

Sony (in katakana: ソニー) is a consumer electronics corporation based in Tokyo, Japan. It was founded on May 7, 1946 as the Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering with about 20 employees. Their first consumer product, in the late 1940s, was a rice boiler. As it grew into a major international corporation, Sony acquired other companies with longer histories, including Columbia Records (the oldest continuously produced brand name in recorded sound, dating back to 1888).

When Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo was looking for a romanized name to use to market themselves, they strongly considered using their initials, TTK . The primary reason they did not, is that the railway company Tokyo Kyuko was known as TKK.

The name "Sony" was chosen as a mix of the Latin word sonus, which is the root of sonic and sound, and the English word "sunny." At the time of the change, it was extremely odd for a Japanese company to use Roman letters to spell its name, much less the phonetic script used in the Japanese writing, instead of Chinese characters.

The move was not without opposition; TTK's principle bank at the time, MitsuiMitsui is one of the largest corporation groups in Japan. History Founded by Takatoshi Mitsui ( 1622 1694), who was born a second son of a shopkeeper in Matsuzaka, called Echigoya in today's Mie prefecture. His father originally sold miso, a type of liquo, had strong feelings about the name. They pushed for a name such as Sony Electronic Industries, or Sony Teletech. Akio MoritaAkio Morita ( January 26, 1921 in Nagoya, Japan October 3, 1999 in Tokyo) was a co-founder of Sony Corporation. Trained as a physicist, Morita was an officer in the Japanese navy during World War II. His family was involved in sake production. He met Masa was firm, however, as he did not want the company name tied to any particular industry. Eventually, both Chairman BandaiBandai is a Japanese toy making company. It was founded in 1950. It is the world's third largest producer of toys. Some of the early tin plate toys are highly collectible; the pictured model will sell for around US$150. Bandai has several subsidaries, inc, and President Masaru IbukaMasaru Ibuka ( April 11, 1908 in Nikko City, Japan December 19, 1997 in Tokyo) was a Japanese electronics industrialist. He graduated in 1933 from Waseda University where he earned the nickname "genius inventor. He co-founded Sony Corporation in 1946 (ori gave their approval.

In 19881988 is a leap year starting on Friday (click on link for calendar). Events January January 2 Georgia celebrates its bicentennial statehood. January 9 Connecticut celebrates its bicentennial statehood. January 26 Australia celebrates its bicentennial day., Sony acquired CBS (Columbia) Records Group from CBSCBS Columbia Broadcasting System is a major radio and television network in the United States. CBS was one of the three commercial television networks that dominated broadcasting in the United States before the rise of cable television. In the days of rad. It was renamed " Sony Music EntertainmentIn 1988, Sony acquired CBS Records for $2 Billion and renamed it Sony Music Entertainment . CBS retains the rights to the name and the logo. Sony introduced the Columbia label after it bought the international rights of the label from EMI. Epic Records is".

In 2000This page is about the year 2000. See 2000 AD for the UK comic book, Number 2000 for other uses. 2000 is a leap year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar), and also the International Year for a Culture of Peace''. Events Y2K passes without the seri, Sony had sales of US $63 billion and 189,700 employees. Sony acquired Aiwa corporation in 2002.

Sony also owns television channels in India and channels aimed at Indian communities in Europe.

Sony has historically been notable for pushing its own in-house standards for new recording and storage technologies, which are often different from those of other manufacturers or of market trends and standards. The most infamous of these was the videotape format war of the early 1980s, when Sony marketed its Betamax system for video cassette recorders against the VHS format developed by JVC. In the end, VHS gained critical mass in the marketplace and became the worldwide standard for consumer VCRs and Sony had no choice but to capitulate. Sony has continued the same tactic with subsequent technologies; for example, it pushes its MiniDisc digital recording format (intended to replace cassette tapes) whilst rivals favour CD-R and MP3 instead. Sony also makes heavy use of its Memory Stick flash memory modules for digital cameras and other portable devices, which few other manufacturers use. It also attempted to compete with the Iomega Zip drive and Imation Superdisk with their HiFD, but this proved a severe failure.

In 2004, the London Borough of Camden, England brought Anti Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) against Sony Music UK and BMG for alleged fly posting . Illegal fly posting by the two companies is thought to save them £8 million a year in advertising costs in Camden and cost the Borough £250,000 to clean up. Failing to comply with an ASBO can result in a jail sentence of up to 5 years.

On July 20th, 2004, the EU approved a 50-50 merger between Sony Music Entertainment and BMG. The new company will be called Sony BMG and will, together with RIAA partner Universal, control 60% of the world wide music market.

On September 13th 2004 a Sony-led consortium finalised the deal to purchase famous film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for about $5 Billion, including $2Bn in debts.