Friday, 23 March 2007

Sony’s Howard Stringer Regrets the Missed Opportunity with iPod

Sony's chief executive has said that the company does not want to miss out on opportunity when it comes to the iPhone. The company’s CEO believes it lost a lucrative opportunity when it came to the iPod. According to sources, the Japanese company’s first expat CEO Sir Howard Stringer...

Sony's chief executive has said that the company does not want to miss out on opportunity when it comes to the iPhone. The company’s CEO believes it lost a lucrative opportunity when it came to the iPod.

According to sources, the Japanese company’s first expat CEO Sir Howard Stringer, a Scottish media man who spent most of his career in the US, has said that the reason the company has not come in first in the digital music market is because of Sony’s stubbornness.

Stringer commented about the company saying, "All the divisions were in their own little worlds".

Stringer is of the opinion that this strategy is the reason that the company could not tap into the emerging digital music player business.

"We were working with IBM on electronic music distribution and could have put this out five years earlier [than the iPod]," he complained. "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."

"I would never sit up here and say I'm not worried about Steve Jobs," Stringer cautioned. "I wouldn't bet against Steve."

Apple has had a cakewalk with its iPod range of digital music players since it was launched five years ago. Electronic companies like Sony, Philips, Samsung and hardware makers like Dell, Microsoft have tried their hands in the same market but with little success.

Today iPod is an icon and has a cult status among its users. On other hand, Sony, once a benchmark in consumer electronics, has seen the demand for its products falling across the world as Korean and a clutch of Chinese companies get aggressive and launch more advanced, innovative and lower priced products.