Sony founder Akio Morita dead at age 78 98
Winston Smith writes "Akio Morita, founder of Sony, died today at age 78. Morita defined the post-war Japanese electronics industry and his vision and influence played a major role in shaping our gadgetized world. He'll be missed. Here's the NYT obituary." (You already know the "registration required" drill.)
Re:welfare state (Score:1)
Cheers,
-j.
Re:So what does the name Sony mean? (Score:2)
Heck, if I were him, I would have called it Morita.
Some reporter once asked IIRC, John Lennon, what he called his haircut. (This was back during the British Invasion). He said he called it Arthur.
Re:So what does the name Sony mean? (Score:1)
Cheersy,
-j.
Re:Cool off here. (maybe refueling the fire)... (Score:1)
As a graphic artist, I have frequently had marketers as bosses, and they were generally the worst bunch around.
It is called Philips and ... (Score:1)
The creator of VHS was Japan Victor Company, JVC, which in itself was the spinoff of the local Japanese branch of RCA hence their right to use the logo with the dog looking into the old turntable cone (His Master's Voice). And only because Matsushita Denki, which Panasonic is a daughter company of, supported VHS whole heartedly did it eventually outdo Betamax. Probably because Matsushita is the largest consumer electronics company in Japan and they had muscle enough to outdo Sony.
All in all a good example of how little technology in itself matters for the spread of any product. First the technically most superior product fell (video 2000), then the next (Betamax) and what was left, VHS, that however eventually has been refined to not be too crappy.
My other favorite example (it goes off topic now
I am getting too far off topic, when all I should say is that the World actually has lost a true innovator and entrepreneur, and the Japanese has lost the 'dark sheep' of Japanese electronics industries, that they even so eventually learned to love the products of (like Honda in the car industry
May he rest in peace.
Peter
AKA lalleglad (lynx wont let me login)
Re:Aint got time for this (Score:1)
--
Re:What did he really create? (Score:2)
My brother opened up our PSX and tried to pull a cable out of a socket on the mainboard and successfully managed to liberate the socket as well. I was angry because it only a day old at the time. I looked at it and the connector was SMT and the solder joints were very "cold."
Ho hum, grab my solder station, fix it, and do a little more "modification" while I'm at it.
My brother's SONY CD changer (which I'm still making fun of him for buying) sometimes glitches and he has to shut off his van and restart it to get it working. Essentially, he has to reboot his van. That's pretty sad.
Basically, it comes down to how many units you can produce in a short time. Often, doing a good job comes second. I've been in the process control business and that is the focus of development in that area.
My PSX is a newer "dual shock" model. There are more plastic parts in the CD mechanism in the newer ones. I'm already getting FMV skipping on some CDs.
However, I'll have to give SONY quite a few kudos for the recent quality of some of their ideas such as the PSX, the AIBO, and the VAIO.
Re:What did he really create? (Score:1)
i want to put in a plug for sony's professional stuff, something along the lines of "it's quite nice", but i don't think i've ever used any.
what professional equipment do they make? apparently not pro-audio, or at least not much of it. i imagine they have high quality pro video products.
if you want to do something right, and never worry about it breaking, buy pro products. they're more expenive, and lack some cushy features (remote controls), but they're amazing. i'll never go back to consumer audio.
Re:Why this man was a success... (Score:2)
Betacam != betamax
Re:legacy (Score:1)
i'm (virtually) positive they're not. minidiscs are. i can't imagine nearly every studio in the world would use a compressed format.
i could be wrong, but i'm virtually sure they're raw.
phase problems are another matter entirely. . .
Re:Cool off here... (Score:1)
Nope. If those particular engineers didn't exist, others would have invented something else cool and exciting. The success of PSX is based on engineering, marketing, and manufacturing. All of which combined gives you your immensely popular end product. All of which is directed by the top of the hierarchy, if not Morita (he was only an honorary position holder last I checked) then his successor. Successful companies are formed from the top down, not by talented engineers (see Microsoft(MSFT)), among others.
Chris
PS - besides, the PSX is not such an amazing technological achievement. PSX2 looks like it may be, however. Pretty good 3d action for your buck, though...
Re:What did he really create? (Score:1)
Sound of New York (Score:1)
Re:legacy (Score:1)
In order to get the bit density needed, you need either a very short gap, or a high tape speed. The short gap required thin film heads, then under development. The high tape speed can achieved with helical scan. Philips wanted linear DAT, but Sony pushed for rotating head DAT. Sony wanted to get to market ASAP, and argued that VCR technology made that possible, even though cost and performance would suffer.
With R-DAT on the market, Philips rushed the linear variant, and didn't wait for better heads. With lower density, they went for lossy compression, which also wasn't fully developed.
So we have two formats, neither as good as it could be.
It isn't japanese .. (Score:1)
Simply because he had his first encounter with a magnetic taperecorder in
Re:Natural deselection (Score:1)
Great, now you've gone and gotten me depressed.
Doesn't work (Score:1)
The problem with shared public accounts is, invariably, some jerk decides to get cute and change the password to something else.
Re:Why this man was a success... and why Beta died (Score:1)
The problem with Beta was not due to "a lack of movies" as you state, but had more to do with Sony refusing to sell blank tapes to the porn industry. JVC was more than happy to let whoever have blank tapes.
-------------------
Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may be drafted...
Re:So what does the name Sony mean? (Score:1)
Walkman invented by German guy in his garage (Score:1)
But then, a couple of months later, Sony came out with their walkman, which was remarkably similar to this guys' invention. Lots of details were similar, including a device that used the microphone to record the noises around, and mixed that into the music that was listened to. The goal was to not complete isolate the listener from ambient noises, which could get dangerous if you were in a car, or similar situation. This device was dropped on later models, as it was a little bit too telling.
The German guy sued Sony, but being rather poor, he couldn't afford a lawyer who was really up to task. Moreover, he also didn't anticipate that Sony would go as far as to have his house burgled to steal any evidence... He eventually lost, and had was left with a huge legal bill.
Re:What did he really create? (Score:1)
I will miss him. (Score:1)
I remember him from one of the Amex "Do you know me?" ads in the 80's. The cliche "birdlike" really applied to him small and slight, and his eyes were full of both intelligence and no small amount of humor.
I have a mental image of him now, perhaps sitting in a garden or on a hill, with a pack of ideally-realized Aibo's frolicking around him...
welfare state (Score:1)
Article Text (Score:3)
By The Associated Press
TOKYO (AP) -- Politicians and business executives mourned the death of Sony Corp.
co-founder Akio Morita on Sunday, lauding the entrepreneur who helped change
Japan's image from a maker of slipshod products to world-class manufacturer.
``Morita was a leading figure who played a pivotal role in developing Japan's postwar
economy,'' Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi was quoted as saying by Kyodo News
agency.
Morita, whose health had been failing for several years, died Sunday of pneumonia. He
was 78.
Obuchi was one of about 400 people who visited the world-renowned businessman's
Tokyo home following his death.
Morita co-founded the electronics giant in a bombed-out department store after World
War II. He was the last of a generation of Japanese industrialists that included
carmaker Soichiro Honda and electronics rival Konosuke Matsushita.
A front page article in Japan's national Asahi newspaper called him the ``face of
Japan's economic sector.''
Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, who co-authored ``The Japan That Can Say No,''
with Morita, called him an exceptional businessman with a cosmopolitan outlook.
``He had the international mind that Japan lacked in the past and looked at Japan's
place in the world with a sense of relativity,'' Ishihara said.
He added that if Morita had become chairman of Japan's top business lobby, the Japan
Federation of Economic Organizations, ``the Japanese economy might have changed.''
Morita was a savvy salesman who became No. 386 on Forbes magazine's list of
billionaires, with an estimated worth of $1.3 billion. He was also the only
non-American on U.S.-based Time magazine's list of the top 19 businessmen of the
20th century.
In the late 1980s, he called for many of the economic reforms now being carried out by
Japan's government, although he reportedly declined an offer to become foreign
minister in August 1993.
``Mr. Morita was a hero for me. He hewed through the world market and breathed life
into the company and the Sony brand,'' company president Nobuyuki Idei said.
Born in the central Japanese city of Nagoya on Jan. 26, 1921, Morita retired as Sony's
chairman in 1994. A year earlier he had suffered a stroke that left him weakened and in
a wheelchair.
Sony Corp. began in 1946 when Morita, the oldest son of a rice-wine brewer, joined
former Japanese navy colleague Masaru Ibuka, a fellow engineer, to start a business
repairing radios on a borrowed $500.
Using old parts and ingenuity in Japan's harsh postwar economy, he and Ibuka
produced Japan's first magnetic recording tape and tape recorder in 1950.
They made Japan's first transistors in 1954 after convincing government industrial
planners to allow their upstart company to buy the rights to the American device. They
made Japan's first all-transistor radio in 1955.
Sony made the world's first all-transistor television in 1960 and the first home video
tape recorder in 1965.
With Morita as president of Sony's U.S. subsidiary, Sony in 1970 became the first
Japanese firm to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange and in 1972 became one of
the first Japanese companies to build a U.S. factory.
Probably the company's most famous success was the Walkman personal stereo
cassette player, which Sony began selling in the 1980s.
Morita was also ready to acknowledge his occasional blunders. His best-known gaffe
was in VCRs. When the market for videocassette recorders was in its infancy in the
early 1980s, Sony pushed its Beta recording format but lost to competitors who used
the more popular VHS standard.
Even without Morita at the helm, Sony continues to lead the world in electronics and
computer entertainment. Earlier this month, the company launched a new attack on
rival game makers Sega and Nintendo by announcing next year's launch of an improved
version of its popular PlayStation system.
Re:Cool off here... (Score:1)
Note, not that I persoanlly appreciate this humour too much, I realize it exists, and I'll take it. As long as there's no direct insults to the person, then (within reason) it's fair game.
And I'll bet his only involvement with the PSX 2 would be pen to paper on the go-ahead of the project, like most company presidents. He might never have even done this, perhaps the executives did it for him...
I know what time he died... (Score:3)
Natural deselection (Score:1)
I think anyone who enjoys electronic gaming or listening to music on the run should stop right now and pay a few minutes of respect.
A most influential man.... (Score:1)
From the development of the first successful transistor radio, the Trinitron tube TV, and so on to the co-development of the Compact Disc, Sony under the guidance of Morita was one of the few companies most visibly responsible for raising Japan out of the ashes of World War II to economic prominence today. Morita did such a masterful salesmenship job for Sony that when Sony announced their PlayStation game console, it literally became almost overnight the #1 gaming platform.
If I were to list the top 10 industrialists of the 20th Century, Akio Morita belongs in this esteemed company.
Re:NYT Registration (Score:1)
login: test_user
password: test_user
Someone want to create user slashdot password slashdot?
legacy (Score:1)
Re:legacy (Score:1)
Re:CD != Sony (Score:1)
In essence, they killed off the technology to protect their monopoly a little longer. (It's going away anyway. MP3 and similar formats will destroy the record industry as it is today.)
At any rate, blaming DAT's failure on Sony is really a bit unfair. DAT was a great technology and would have boomed if left alone.
Re:It is called Philips and ... (Score:1)
Re:CD != Sony (Score:1)
Actually, you're a little off. Sony did invent Betamax (and Betacam, the professional format), but JVC and Matshuita (sp) invented VHS after Sony told them to pound sand on a colaberative effort (as they did with u-Matic).
As for CD's, Philips invented the compact disk, but didn't have a use for it until Sony presented them with the digital encode/decode process
read all about VHS and Beta in _Fast_Forward_ [psu.edu]. I especially like the story about when Akio Morita slammed a paperback book on a table demanding the engineers make the tape the same size. Much like the dress shirts that had an oversized pocket to prove their transistor radio was "pocket sized."
Re:legacy (Score:1)
Betamax tape is bought by the foot. The most common length is 750'. They made an 8XX' length, but it was too thin for more than a few plays without problems.
The case was designed to be the same size as a paperback book. This caused a big problem, because it was very difficult to balence quality and recording time. The engineers produced a near-broadcast quality format (Beta I), but the tape would only hold 1.5 hours. They didn't want to reduce the tape speed (and quality) to fit a movie on one tape. JVC, not having the same restrictions on cassette size as Sony (see my post above), were more than happy to have a 2 hour tape (T-120). However, the quality was never as good as Beta I. Once Sony saw the problem with the length of the tape, they introduced Beta-II and later B-III. The quality of B-II and B-III is much worse than beta-I, but you can fit a movie on one tape.
Re:NYT Registration (Score:1)
Re:Cool off here. (maybe refueling the fire)... (Score:1)
Yes, but he had a very clear vision of what the world should be. That, in many ways is much more important than defining specific products. Could you imagine the technical knowledge and capital of, say, IBM under the control of someone who demands the impossible?
A greater concern to Japan seems to be that all the great inovators seem to be dying off. I'm not an expert on Japan, but from what I've been told about their culture is that it does not exactly create free thinkers (which is just what they need right now). Sure, they can perfect devices (witness laptops), but can they do something truly new?
BTW, (feel free to argue this point) the most important product Sony ever introduced was the (professional) portable video recorder. Many of the programs, channels, and producers you see today owe much to that little device!
Re:legacy (Score:1)
Now if I can only get my Discman to fit into my pocket...
Re:Doesn't work (Score:1)
"Incorrect ID / Password Combination"
As an aside, Why does it say "Incorrect ID" on the page, but "Invalid ID" in the title? For a publication company, it's a bit substandard. I'm in documentation so I'm a pedantic sod.
Re:welfare state (Score:1)
Re:NYT Registration (Score:1)
It was worth a shot, no?
Re:welfare state (Score:1)
Morita was a giant in consumer electronics (Score:3)
Interestingly, I'm typing this on my new iBook - and Jobs' desire to produce products with a consumer-oriented "look" to them has been, by his own admission, profoundly influenced by Sony.
Although Morita stepped away from direct control over the company in the mid-'90s, I wonder if Sony risks losing a sense of direction without the founder present to "center" the company. It will be interesting to see. Sony still is strong in newer categories like CD recording and digital video (they are a leader in the deployment of FireWire devices), along with some of the more interesting PC designs (I'd love a PictureBook, oh yes...). Will they stay that way?
- -Josh Turiel
Why this man was a success... (Score:3)
According to this article: "Morita [told] engineers to make Walkmans despite the lack of market research. "We don't believe in market research for a new product unknown to the public. So we never do any," he said.
How many great products never make it to the world because of some idiot in the marketing department who thinks his or her opinion is all that counts? It's not like marketing departments are ALWAYS right...or there wouldn't have been New Coke...Edsel...Iridium...Windows CE...
I really think someone who has guts to stand behind an idea is someone who will be sorely missed in this technology-based world.
And Beta was better, anyway...it's still the standard for broadcasting. Sony just didn't have the media clout back then to get high volumes of popular movies in that format...
My opinion...maybe true...probably not...just true enough to me.
- JoeShmoe
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it was a joint venture (Score:1)
Re:Why this man was a success... and why Beta died (Score:1)
Re:italics (Score:1)
Cheers,
Rick Kirkland
CD != Sony (Score:2)
Likewise, Sony did not invent the CD...they wanted consumers to use DAT. DAT had the same quality as CD, plus it was more durable and was (drumroll) RECORDABLE in DIGITAL. Of course, CD won the consumer market and DAT stays in professional recording studios.
Generally speaking...Sony's biggest mistake has been overestimating the taste of consumers.
- JoeShmoe
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Re:welfare state (Score:1)
What did he really create? (Score:2)
Re:Cool off here... (Score:1)
Chris
PS - Sony laptops are phenomenal. How can one company continually turn out the coolest new stuff...one man's vision...
So what does the name Sony mean? (Score:1)
Heck, if I were him, I would have called it Morita.
--Bernie
Re:So what does the name Sony mean? (Score:1)
AP wire story, so why post NYT? (Score:1)
Re:So what does the name Sony mean? (Score:1)
name of plants it's supposed to be made of (coca
and cola). As to Sony.... My Stereo & Video mag
tells the legend that Sony was established by a
group of youngsters and noone believed in their
success and called them in English manner 'sonny',
but in Japanese son-ni sounds bad, son means 'loss,
damage' (can be inaccurate, I have only Japanese-Russian handy),
thus son-ni means 'in loss', maybe even out of money,
in dire straits. PS you can check it against online English Japanese dictionary.