Sony's Track Record as an Innovative Company

624 Words2 Pages

Sony's Track Record as an Innovative Company

There is no doubt that Sony has been successful and innovative. The

company is extremely well known for being innovative and originating

from a country that does not encourage that attribute. It is just one

of the features which set it apart from its Japanese competitors in

it's early stages.

When you consider the innovations Sony has brought us, it is clearly

apparent that it has a definite track record for being a highly

innovative leader rather than a follower with its products.

Sony - Important Innovations

1949 - First tape recorder

1954 - First all-transistor radio

1968 - first Trinitron colour television

1971 - The colour video-cassette

1975 - First home-use video system, the Betamax

1979 - The Walkman

1981 - The electronic camera

1982 - The CD player

1983 - First consumer camcorder

1988 - 8mm format video media

1989 - The 3.5" floppy disk

1992 - The Minidisc media

1993 - Digital video discs (DVDs) and digital video players

and digital video players (DVPs)

1995 - CD ROM based dedicated gaming console, Playstation

2000 - Combined gaming console, DVD player and Internet

browser, Playstation 2

Shortly after Sony introduced most of these, competitors imitated

them. Some of the products have become standard and integral parts of

modern lifestyles eg transistor radio.3.5" floppy disk. The Sony

Walkman is the single best selling consumer electronics product ever -

it has sold 150 million units worldwide. It was so popular that the

name 'Walkman' has become synonymous with the personal cassette player

product, just like Hoover and the vacuum cleaner. When you look at the

dates, you can see that since 1968, there has been 5 years or less

between the major product innovations. This suggests they have the

whole process down to a 't'. In fact, in 1995, Sony was turning out 4

new products a day and at the height of Walkman sales, a new model

every 3 weeks! In order to ensure such a level of innovation -

Open Document