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What Sony releases. Sony success story. General characteristics of the company

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On January 26, 1921, Akio Morita was born, one of the founders of the Sony Corporation, which began its existence in the post-war 1946 in Japan, bled white by the Second World War. Former colleagues - engineer Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita, a graduate of the Faculty of Physics, decided to found a company. The starting capital was $ 375 at the rate of those years.

Currently, the SonyGroup holding includes 8 operating divisions with different specializations in the segments of home and professional electronics, production, music industry, banking and insurance.

Sony engineers have significantly enriched the electronics market throughout the history of the company. Some of their inventions were truly innovative. So, the primacy in the development of portable radios and sound recording tape recorders, sound recording tapes on a special magnetic powder, belongs to Sony, which launched them on sale in the 1950s.

G-prototype of a tape recorder for sound recording

By the way, it was with the tape recorder that the full-fledged financial turnover of the company began, the creation and formation of the Sony brand and entry into the world market.

Making everything portable is another idea that the company gave to the electronics market. And the next step in this direction was taken ten years later, when the world's first portable TV TV8-301 appeared, and in 1968 the Trinitron color television system, also a Sony development, was launched. By 1971, the company was attracting customers with color video cassettes and a professional color cassette recording system that had never existed before.

Portable TV TV8-301

In 1978, the engineer of the company Nobutoshi Kihara brought to life the idea of Akio Morita - he created a portable cassette player, which entered stores already in 1979 in the version of "SonyWalkman TPS-L2" under different trade names, depending on the country of sale of the product. For example, it was sold as "Soundabout" in the US, "Freestyle" in Sweden, and "Stowaway" in the UK. Subsequently, Sony patented the idea of ending the final trade names with "-man". From that period, products under the names "Walkman", "Pressman", "Watchman", "Scoopman", "Discman" and "Talkman" began to appear in full force. As for the audio cassette player, a total of 100 million copies have been sold worldwide.

Cassette audio player Sony WalkmanTPS-L2

Compact discs are another breakthrough made by Sony together with Philips in 1982 (although the project was formed and documented as early as 1979).

Two years later, in November 1984, the company developed the world's first portable disc player. In the future, the management invested a lot of resources in order to reduce the dimensions of the device, which, by the way, paid off the investment in a year and a half after the start of sales.

And already at the very beginning of the 90s, the first mini-discmen (mini-discmans) appeared, which were not popular for long because of the non-standard size - manufacturers were not very willing to print small discs.

mini discman

In 1989, the company launched the GV-8 VideoWalkman, a portable video player for Video 8 cassettes. The display had a 3-inch diagonal and a battery life of about 45-60 minutes.

1994 was also a significant year for the corporation: the PlayStation game consoles went on sale, which received great success among gamers. That is why it was decided to develop and modify the console in the future.

Photographic equipment is a separate issue. The company began entering the photographic equipment market in 1981, introducing the Mavica (Magnetic Video Camera) digital SLR camera to the world, which worked on a proprietary line of television video cameras assembled on the basis of CCD matrices. It was this camera and the principles of its operation that initiated the era of modern digital photography.

Mavica SLR camera, 1981

Success in the digital photography market came to the company after the introduction of the famous line of Cyber-shot cameras, which began its ascent in 1996 with the Sony Cyber-shot F1 version, with a lens rotating 180 degrees relative to the body of the device. Pictures could be recorded on a special memory card or viewed on the display and immediately deleted failed frames. Nothing like it existed back then.

Real Sony Corporation

Among the latest products presented by the company in Las Vegas at the CES 2015 International Consumer Electronics Show, which was held from January 6 to 9, is the Bravia X910C TV with a powerful 4K processor X1 (4K Android TV system), 4K video cameras, action cameras with support for the same resolution, the new Walkman NW-ZX2 player with new “chips” for transmitting high-quality sound, the Xperia ™ Z3 smartphone with moisture protection. At the show, Sony Corporation President Kazuo Hirai was presented with an Emmy Technology Award for achieving the highest standards in electronic technology.

And finally, about the numbers. According to the results of the II quarter of 2014-2015, the total revenue of Sony Corporation amounted to 1.9 trillion. yen ($17.4 billion), which is 7.2% higher than last year. The loss is 136 billion yen ($1.2 billion). A year earlier, the loss was 19.6 billion yen.

According to the head of the company, Sony is suffering losses mainly due to the mobile sector, which is under competitive pressure from Chinese manufacturers. In the second quarter of 2014-2015 fiscal year ended September 30, the company recorded a loss of 172 billion yen ($1.6 billion) in the mobile division. SonyMobile's revenue was 308.4 billion yen ($2.8 billion). For the same period last year, revenue was recorded at around 304.6 billion yen. In a word, the corporation is not doing well in the mobile sector, which is why the management is at a crossroads: to sell the mobile division or to look for investors ...

Mu principle

Speaking about such a long existence of Sony in the electronics market, it should be noted that since its foundation, the company's policy has been built in a special way, representing a fusion of Japanese and Western attitudes to business. Demandingness, an informal approach to business, strict adherence to the Zen Buddhist principle of Mu (“non-objectification”, “non-reification”), maximum flexibility and rejection of rigid plans in management that can lead to inertia and bureaucracy, a bonus system for rewarding employees - this is what has become the key to success and longevity is now the holding, with a staff of 140,900 specialists.

The character "mu" in cursive

Of course, for such a long time, the company has had its ups and downs. But, nevertheless, Sony remained on the market, gave life to a huge number of projects, introduced a lot of innovations into the production of electronics, many of which became revolutionary.

Irina Zhukova introduced the milestones in the history of the corporation

company founder Sony

Recipe " Japanese miracle "The Japanese themselves fit in two words:" WAKONI esai ". This means "taking the latest knowledge developed by foreigners, but not letting them shake the foundations of the Japanese way of thinking."

Japan was surprisingly open to fresh ideas. However, innovation alone would not be enough for a "miracle". An equally important component of WAKONI esai was the development of the community consciousness of the Japanese, which found its expression in the corporate spirit. The most harmonious "old and new" united in the brainchild of the famous Akio Morita - in the concern Sony.

Sony is one of those who gave the phrase "Made in Japan" prestige and made Japan one of the most technologically advanced countries in the eyes of the whole world. Sony was created after the end of World War II, at a difficult time for the country. It was the most opportune moment for the revival of the country. At the origins of the company were two physicists: Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka.

Morita became a legend during his lifetime. Founder Sony there were many roles: physicist, engineer, inventor, businessman, athlete (for 30 years every Tuesday, at exactly 7.30 in the morning, the peppy and fit chairman of the Board of Directors of Sony Corporation appeared on the court; and also scuba diving, windsurfing, water skiing ...) .

was born January 26, 1921 in Nagoya, in a family of respectable distillers. His ancestors made a living by making sake - rice vodka; therefore, the parents of Akio Morita expected to eventually transfer the family business to him. Akio was the eldest son, and in what was then Japan, almost all the children of merchants and entrepreneurs followed in the footsteps of their parents. However, Akio did not want to learn the ancient art and brew sake, as all his relatives did, up to and including the fifteenth generation. It was the 20th century outside, and the boy was interested in mathematics and physics. Oddly enough, the father approved of his son's decision and allowed him to follow his own path.

To do this, Morita goes to the Imperial University in Osaka. After graduation, he goes to military service, where he manages to get the rank of officer. After the end of his service life, Akio Morita goes to work at the Japanese Precision Instrument Company, where he meets Masaru Ibuka.

Masaru Ibuka was physicist head to toe. He was Morita's senior by 13 years. Already from his student years, he stood out from his classmates, for which he received the nickname "genius inventor." When Morita joined Japan Precision Instrument Company, Ibuka was its CEO. The future founders of Sony quickly found a common language. Passion for technology for both was the meaning of life. They did not think about any revolutions, but simply did what brought them pleasure and money ... with which problems soon arose.

After the end of the war Japanese Precision Instrument Companies"lost military orders that supported her life for the past few years. All employees suddenly lost their jobs, and Ibuka lost his business. Akio Morita, in order to somehow earn some money, gets a job as a teacher at the university, and Ibuka goes to a small workshop for repairing electrical appliances. But for both, these decisions have become a cage in which a bird can be imprisoned. They were eager to invent, to create something of their own. And of course, to earn money from this, which a small repair shop and teaching at the university could not bring in any way, which Morita got rid of quite quickly, because, by law, officers did not have the right to be teachers.

Start

On May 7, 1946, the company "Tokyo Tsushin Kogіo Kabusіki Kaisa" was founded, the authorized capital of which amounted to $ 375 (while Morita even borrowed a small amount from his parents). In total, the company initially had 20 employees (all from the previous Ibuki project). However, the company's activities were not revolutionary. No inventions and discoveries at first. I just needed to survive. The company's activities in this regard consisted mainly in the production of voltmeters, rice cookers and small electrical appliances.

« History of our company Morita later wrote, is the story of a group of people who strive to help Ibuka achieve their dreams". For business, Ibuka was too visionary, he did not fit into the streamlined rhythm of work. Therefore, Morita, taking over the management of the enterprise, entrusted the partner with the technical part of the work. The business tandem lasted for about half a century.

Ibuka actively spawned ideas. He came up with, for example, an electric rice cooker, such a hybrid of a bucket and an electric stove. It was possible to cook rice in it, but there is no way to eat it later: it was either burnt or came out undercooked.

However, it was on such units that the company's philosophy was formed and honed, which was not to bring to mind the products that already existed on the market, but to produce completely new goods.

The first major discovery of the company took place in 1949, when Masaru Ibuka patented a magnetic tape for sound reproduction. A year later, the G-Type tape recorder was released, which, despite its poverty, became the basis for the company's future developments. The G-Type tape recorder had only two drawbacks. But they put an end to his future. It was heavy and expensive. The weight of the G-Type was 35 kilograms, and the cost is 900 dollars. A total of 20 such VCRs were produced. It was not possible to sell them until Akio Morita decided to apply to the Supreme Court of Japan, making them an offer to purchase these tape recorders in order to replace stenographers with them. The deal took place and 20 G-Types went to court (in two years a new version of the tape recorder will be released, the weight of which will be 13 kg). In the early 1950s, Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka acquire a license for the production of transistors in the American Western Electric (the price of the patent was 25 thousand dollars). It was a turning point in the history of the company. In 1954, the first transistor produced in the depths of Tokyo Tsushin Kogіo Kabusіki Kaisa was released. After that comes the first radio receiver designed for non-military purposes. The receiver was given the name TR-2 (until that moment, TR1 already existed, it was an unsuccessful receiver). This radio began to be in rather high demand, and soon Ibuka and Morita released a TV and a video recorder. These devices were also based on the transistor. In 1956, a physicist, the future Nobel Prize winner Rayon Esaki, joined the company, who will contribute to the future success of the company.

By the end of the 1950s, Morita and Ibuka began to think about entering the US market. It was clear that the current name was not suitable for this. It was too complicated and long. It was decided to rename the company to Sony.

The word was derived from the Latin sonus, which means "sound". Another consonance was the English sonny, "son". It seemed to emphasize that the firm is run by young and energetic people. But in Japanese "Sleepy" would mean "to lose money." When removing one letter, it turned out Sony. The word was easy to remember and pronounce, and was not tied to any known national language.

Expansion in the USA

In 1963, Sony listed its shares on the New York Stock Exchange. It was the first Japanese company to be listed on the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange). To gain a stronger foothold in the American market, Akio Morita moved to the United States and soon moved his entire family there. Having settled in New York on fashionable Fifth Avenue, Morita temporarily became an American. Thus, he sought to understand the specifics of American business, the characteristics of the market, the traditions and character of Americans. The sociable and witty Japanese easily made acquaintances in the business circles of New York. He realized what his company lacked - openness. The traditional isolation and impenetrability of Japanese culture reduced the effectiveness of his managerial decisions. A new look at Western business, a look from the inside, allowed Morita to combine in his policy the experience of East and West, Japanese thoughtfulness, centralization and European openness.

In 1968, the first Trinitron color TV set was made in Sony laboratories, then sales offices and enterprises were opened in the USA, Great Britain, and Germany. Factories and plants were built - in San Diego, Bridgend, the number of employees and employees grew (now 173 thousand people work at Sony enterprises).

The era of rock and roll

Morita was a real workaholic and demanded the same dedication from his employees. At the same time, the circle of his interests was limited to the affairs of the corporation: Morita loved painting and music, especially Beethoven, went in for sports and closely followed the successes of famous tennis players. Morita also wrote books, of which his autobiography Made in Japan: Akio Morita and Sony (New York, 1988) became the most popular.

In the early 1960s, with the advent of rock and roll, young people began to listen to music more. Morita often watched his children listen to the Beatles, Little Richard and Elvis Presley from morning till night. And not just teenagers: even Japanese adults now bought expensive car stereos and took large and heavy tape recorders with them to a picnic or to the beach. And although the department of new technologies fundamentally did not want to release a tape recorder without a recording function, Morita insisted on his own. Thus was born the Walkman portable player, a bestseller of the late 1970s. The combination of Sony Walkman did not seem very successful to the managers, and they came up with several options for the name for Europe and America: Freestyle for the Swedes, Stowaway for the UK and Soundabout for the United States. However, the level of sales immediately fell - the trademark ceased to be recognized, and Morita again unified the name. The correctness of his decision was immediately confirmed by a new increase in profits.

1975 First home video cassette recorder SL-6300

1979 First portable player TPS-L2 1980 First CD prototype

1982 Video camera BVM-1

1982 First CD player CDP-101

1984 Portable CD player D-50

In 1982 year Sony Corporation launched the first CD. The most familiar medium for a person in the 1990s, the CD was originally intended only for recording sound, transferred to a digital format. The standard capacity of a CD-rom of 640MB was determined in a rather interesting way. Morita conducted marketing research, during which it turned out that among the potential buyers of a CD-rom, the majority are supporters of classical music, who are ready to fork out for a CD that is by no means cheap for the sake of high fidelity. And in the Japanese music market, among other classics, the absolute leader in sales is Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the performance of which takes 73 and a half minutes. By listing 74 minutes of 16-bit stereo sound into bytes, Sony engineers got a capacity of 640MB.

In the end 1980s Sony entered the world of show business and the film industry: in January 1988, the corporation acquired the recording studio CBS Records Inc., later transformed into Sony Music Entertainment. And most recently, she bought the Columbia Pictures film studio, one of the largest film studios in America.

In order to become completely related to music, in 1988 year Sony Acquires record company CBS Records Inc and renames it Sony Music Entertainment. Today this company is one of the largest representatives of sound recording in the world. A year later, Sony also acquires Columbia Pictures Entertainment Inc., thereby inscribing its name also in the film industry.

Next come 90s- the time when Sony began to simply rivet technological innovations. Participation in the development of the DVD format, the creation of Blu-Ray, new TVs, the most popular Sony Vaio laptop series, the Play Station and Play Station Portable game console, Memory Stick memory cards, the Cyber-Shot series of digital cameras, laptop batteries, monitors, an entertainment organizer under called CLIE, a series of DVD players, camcorders and camcorders, Bravia TVs, mobile phones produced in collaboration with Ericsson and much more. Here's what Sony has done lately.

It should be noted that at the beginning of its existence, Sony was strikingly different from other Japanese companies, thereby giving them food for thought (and even changing the concept of Japanese business). The fact is that Sony hired people on a competitive basis, without considering their academic performance at the university and any connections in the company. This was strikingly different from the traditions adopted in Japan at that time, since 99% of companies took on leadership positions of people who were somehow familiar with the president. Sony has made the hiring process impartial. It is said that for many years Akio Morita personally talked with the candidates. This practice will subsequently be adopted by other companies in Japan.

Philosophy of success

Revolutionary developments have become a trademark of Sony. The company created the first transistor television (1959), the first liquid crystal television (1962), the first video recorder (1964), etc.

“Success is followed by untrodden paths,” Morita liked to repeat. It is this principle that he put at the heart of his company philosophy.

And Morita considered the formation of a corporate philosophy to be the most important task of a manager. A leader-leader needs a theoretically strong and practically applicable concept in order to develop a way of thinking that would push subordinates to achieve their goals in any conditions.

The manager's actions depend decisively on how he understands the essence of the enterprise. The concept of management adopted in the USA consists of putting forward measurable goals-tasks and developing specific means to achieve them. American-style managers illustrate their projects with flowcharts in the form of squares, circles and arrows between them.

For a Japanese manager, a firm is not a passive object of management, but something organically whole, a living organism endowed with a soul. For it to live, it is not enough just to design and assemble it from separate cubes. He needs to be grown. And the source of the company's development is its soul, in other words, its philosophy, system of values and beliefs. The notorious hymns, program speeches of leaders and wall propaganda are nothing but the most figurative and capacious expression of the mission, ideals and meaning of the enterprise's existence.

Thousands of employees were united in a single labor impulse with the help of invincible spells. Their authors knew better than anyone the national weaknesses of their compatriots.

First of all, a sense of duty to the team is almost identical to a sense of shame: the Japanese are psychologically uncomfortable, ashamed not to do what others are doing - not to stay after work, not to help their comrades.

The sense of gratitude, which was heightened by the Japanese, was also exploited. So, a Japanese who got a job feels indebted to the employer until the end of his life and pays the debt with his work. From this it is clear why the system of lifetime employment was able to settle in Japan.

Founders

Morita was remembered by the public as a born businessman. While Ibuka favored all things inventiveness and lab work, Akio handled management matters. And he did great with them. In doing so, he wrote two books. The first was called "Meaningless School Achievements." In it, the author explained why successful schooling does not affect a person’s future achievements in life, and in particular in business (in general, Akio was an ardent opponent of judgments that success depends on successful studies at school and at the institute). Morita's second book was the famous "Made in Japan" - the history of Sony Corporation. This book was published in the late 80s, but is still being reprinted today.

Akio Morita has received many awards throughout his life. He is the first Japanese to receive a medal from the Order of the Arts of Great Britain. In addition, he was awarded the honorary title of the holder of the National Order of the Legion of Honor, and also received the Order of the Sacred Treasure First Class from the Emperor of Japan. Akio Morita was a workaholic, giving himself completely to work. In addition, he demanded the same from his subordinates. True, it is worth noting that Morita completely ignored other aspects of life. Yes, he was quite an active tennis player, he loved skiing and scuba diving. Morita was loved in the West. It was he who found the way to the hearts of Americans and Europeans for Sony.

Masaru Ibuka is less famous outside of Japan. The reason for this was that he was engaged in the scientific development of new products of the company and tried not to be all the time in the public eye, like Morita. A clear division of responsibilities among company leaders has in many ways become one of the key factors in successful management at Sony. But do not think that Ibuka dealt only with technical issues. For example, it was he who drew up the famous company charter, which is still observed today: “We will never receive income dishonestly. We will focus on the production of complex devices that will benefit society. We will not divide our products into mechanical and electronic, but we will try to apply our knowledge and experience simultaneously in both areas. We will grant full independence to those enterprises that will cooperate with us, and we will try to strengthen and develop relations with them. We will select employees based on their ability and personality. There will be no formal posts in our company. We will pay bonuses to our employees in proportion to the income generated by their activities, and will make every effort to ensure that they have a decent existence.” Masaru Ibuka would have turned 100 this year.

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Brand: Sony

Tagline: Make it real

Industry: Audio and video; financial services

Products: Consumer and professional electronics

Owner company: Sony Corporation

Year of foundation: 1946

Headquarters: Japan

Sony Corporation, Sony is a multinational corporation headquartered in Japan, founded in 1946. Today, Sony Corporation is one of the operating divisions that make up the Sony Group holding.

Sony Corporation is engaged in the production of consumer and professional electronics, game consoles and other high-tech products. Besides, Sony is one of the world's largest media companies, owning the Sony Music Entertainment record label, Columbia Pictures and TriStars Pictures, and a complete archive of MGM films (with Comcast).

history of the company

history of the company Sony begins after the end of the Second World War, when the young engineer Masaru Ibuka (Masaru Ibuka) and the talented entrepreneur Akio Morita (Akio Morita), joined forces to open their own production of radio components. But first things first.

In September 1945, Masaru returns from the battlefield to dilapidated Tokyo, where he decides to open his workshop for the repair of various electrical equipment in the Nihonbashi shopping center. After some time, he and his old friend Akio Morita (Akio Morita) set up an office in the same room for a new company, which received the loud name Tokyo Telecommunications Research Institute, which was sometimes abbreviated to Totsuko. A year later, they will move to some semblance of what can already be called the head office.

Their first development was a set-top box for radio receivers, which expanded the capabilities of the device, allowing it to receive foreign programs. These products were not in very high demand, but allowed them to stay afloat, having put together a kind of initial capital. Moreover, sometimes it was necessary to take payment not in money, but in rice, which was a common occurrence for an impoverished country. It was very easy to resell rice in the conditions of hungry Japan, and, having developed and implemented a device for cooking rice, he made his first trip to the home appliance market.

These inventions were sold on the black market, and Ibuka's longtime friend, Shozaburo Tachikawa, helped them sell the goods. Selling the device was easy, and Tachikawa did his job with ease.

Post-war Japan is a place where it was very difficult to start any kind of business, and everything was in deficit, both in material resources and in intellectual potential. Bound by these conditions, Ibuka, Tachikawa and a few employees of the company worked for days, tirelessly.

The existence of the company was mainly dependent on the sale of heating pads, even though they were sold under the false name "Ginza Nessuru Shokai" (Ginza Heating Company). But it couldn’t last that long, there was a certain problem with the quality of the pillows produced, namely the risk of fire. There were incidents, but no complaints were received, only from the attitude of buyers to the usability of pillows. But such "playing with fire" could easily destroy the young company's reputation.

After some persuasion, the promising physicist Kazuo Iwama, who had previously married his sister Morita, gets into the ranks of the company.

At the same time, NHK (National Broadcasting Station) provided an order for the reconstruction of military equipment to restore radio broadcasting in Japan. The project was led by Ibuka's friend Shigeo Shima. The order was of national importance, so Shigeo got access to military developments, which later fell into the hands of Ibuka.

Although business with NHK was going well, the owner of the plant occupied by the company asked to vacate the premises. The point was that in order to stay afloat, the company needed to work for days, consuming a lot of electricity, and such energy consumption could easily cause a power outage in the entire building. I had to obey and start looking again for a place where I could continue my undertakings in serial and conveyor production.

After a difficult few months of searching, the premises were located in the NEC Corporation warehouse in Shinagawa.

Soon the company got the opportunity to work with the occupying forces. Cooperation with the troops allowed the Totsuko company to obtain a recording device. In his design, he used a metal tape and after a little refinement, a new employee Nobutoshi Kihara (Nobutoshi Kihara), was able to record news blocks.

The prospect of visiting the occupying troops was obvious, and so Morita and Ibuka increasingly visited them in NHK. The next time they were shown a tape recorder. It was something that Ibuka was instantly on fire with the desire to do the same. After persuading the officer to show the tape recorder to their company designers, Ibuta and Morita went to Tachikawa and asked him for about 300,000 yen, a huge amount of money at the time, but Ibuka was confident that the device would pay for itself. After some persuasion and demonstration of the American device to Tachikawa's partner, Ibuka achieved the desired amount.

The tape recorder was invented by German scientists back in 1936, a decade later such a device remained a rarity even in the USA. The next few months were busy with the production of magnetic powder, using an ordinary grill.

Having sprayed such powder on a special surface, Ibuka and Morita achieved the desired result, but this was not the limit of perfection. Although their film could record and play sound, due to not knowing the correct deposition technology, the powder consumption was very high. And then Ibuka decided to turn to the Yama-no-ue plant, where this technology had already been mastered.

Ibuka learned there that a comb made from badger hair was the way to go, perfect for spraying. After buying a comb, and not long experiments, everything worked out, the result met all expectations. Further, through experiments, it became obvious that the thickness of the powder is directly proportional to the sound quality, i.e. the thinner the layer, the better the quality.

The first prototype of the tape recorder

The development of the prototype continued for several months, until the 1st tape recorder appeared in September 1949. In February 1950, the A and G prototypes appeared, which could record and play a tape of a total duration of no more than 30 minutes.

The G-prototype was registered to Tapecorder. And the film production process was called "Soni-Tape". After several articles about such a miracle device, the increase in interest in Totsuko did not surprise anyone. Masao Kurahashi, one of the Yagumo Sangyo employees, was especially interested. By this time, Totsuko's capital had grown from 3.8 million to 10 million yen.

Masao decided to invest 500,000 yen and buy back 10,000 shares at 50 yen each. But first, he had to see Totsuko with his own eyes. After a visual demonstration, Kurahashi offered to sell him all the rights to the tape recorder. But Ibuka refused. Instead, he issued a response offer to buy 50 tape recorders for a total value of 6 million yen. Masao wrote the check. Soon he resold them at a higher price, thus. making a profit of 1 million yen on top.

Kurahashi's success impressed Morita so much that he offered Masao to join his company and head the sales department at Totsuko. Morita and Ibuka's perseverance did the trick, and Kurahashi became a member of the team.

In early 1951, Masao Kurahashi became the manager of Tokyo Recording Company, a subsidiary of Totsuko. Also, the scientist Takeo Tsuchihashi was invited to the company, whose task was to bring the tape recorder to perfection.

The sound recording device constantly spoiled the magnetic tape, and broke, but even if everything worked fine, the tape recorder was very difficult to control, both for those who had not used such devices at all until that time, and for those who were somehow enlightened . The very next day, Kihara, along with the rest of the engineers, began to create 2 new prototypes, which were supposed to have a smaller size and weight, which is 20 kg. Developed in 1951, the H-tape recorder already weighed only 13 kg.

As part of the promotional campaign, Kurahashi went on a tour of Japan, while Morita intended to convince the Ministry of Education to use tape recorders in schools. Soon a P-tape recorder appeared at a price of 75 thousand yen, it broke all sales records. And not only because of the price, but also because of the service that came with the supplied products. If the tape recorder breaks down while using it, Totsuko performed all repairs absolutely free of charge. So, Totsuko turned flaws into virtues.

Mass production

When the product moved to mass production, Totsuko had trouble meeting consumer demand. Therefore, they decided to buy a small plant, and a conveyor production was established.

By this time, Totsuko's sales network consisted of 3 companies, including Tokyo Recording Company. Soon Nippon Gakki (or Japan Instruments) joined these companies, it was very profitable to work with her, because Nippon Gakki already had supplies to music educational institutions. But even such a network and good sales in Japan could not make Totsuko a company with a sufficiently large income.

It was then that Morita came to the conclusion that it was time to export the goods outside the country. This would not only expand the circle of consumers, but also increase the company's chances of survival in the event of any economic crises. In addition, Totsuko had a patent for tape recording that could help monopolize the market.

When Kazuo Iwama and Ibuka read an article in a Western popular science magazine about the development of the transistor at Bell Laboratories, they seriously doubted the capabilities of this device. In March 1952, Masaru Ibuka went to the United States to study the use of transistors, and at the same time to look at how the process of their creation by an American company was going on.

A few days later, he was already in New York, where he met with the head of the Nissho company, Masaichi Nishikawa (Masaichi Nishikawa) and his companion Yamada (Yamada). He also received an offer from Western Electric to use the transistor patent for a small fee of $25,000 (9 million yen). But on this trip, he failed to obtain a patent.

He returned to Japan with a vinyl tablecloth and germanium diodes, which were new to the local market. But Masaru also returned with the confidence that the future lies with transistors. After consulting with Akio Morita, Ibuka sought advice from his managing director, Koichi Kasahara. After spending the whole night thinking, Koichi decided that transistors were exactly what they were supposed to do. Ibuka applied for a license from MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry), but he was refused, arguing that his factory was too small for such production.

At this time, having become friends with Ibuka in New York, Yamada was negotiating with Western Electric to grant a patent to Totsuko. He soon became successful and in August 1953 Morita arrived in the United States, where he signed a contract with Western Electric. The next thing Morita decided to do was to start manufacturing transistor radios.

Despite the opinions of others about the possibilities of such a small company as Totsuko, Ibuka was sure that everything was still ahead. A team of the company's top experts studied a book on transistors that Morita had brought from the US.

In January 1954, Iwama traveled to the US to learn more about transistors, where he visited a Western Electric plant. The knowledge gained should have been enough for Totsuko to develop his own prototype. Iwama recorded all the information he received and sent it to Totsuko's engineers.

A week before his return, Japan's 1st transistor was ready. Now, in order to continue the company, it was necessary to obtain a loan and establish production. Next, Ibuka invites a well-known scientist, Professor Takasaki, who by this time already had several patents, to join his company.

As problems appeared and were solved, the plant was re-equipped until it was finally ready for the production of transistors. By the end of October, the first transistors and devices based on them appeared on the market. 2T14 transistors cost about 4,000 yen, and 1T23 diodes cost about 320 yen. Despite the decent price, they sold just fine.

Morita was preparing for his 2nd deployment to the US, where he wanted to make agreements and show a working sample of his receiver. But that was not the only purpose of the trip. In order to sell their products in America, the company needed a different name - the Americans could not pronounce not only Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo, but even Totsuko. And selling a product from a company whose name is difficult to pronounce did not make sense.

Morita and Ibuka decided to change the current name to one that is easy to pronounce and remember. The choice fell on the Latin word "sonus", a derivative of the words "speed" and "sound". According to another version, the name of the company comes from the English. sunny boys ("sunny guys"; in the English variant sonny-boys acquired the meaning of "juvenile geniuses" in Japanese, in addition, Morita tried to find a word that does not exist in any language in the world. Since in Japanese the sounds of "sonny" resemble the word, denoting an unsuccessful business, it was decided to remove one of the letters n.

Totsuko now had a great international name. Morita wanted to sell products exclusively under his own name, so if the conditions of the received order included the use of the name of another company, then such orders were refused.

April 1955 At this time, an unforeseen event occurred - the body of the receivers, made of thin plastic, due to the hot weather of America, simply deformed. I had to modify the product, with the needs already oriented. Completed in August, the TR-55 was just such a radio, ie. the company has shown that it can adapt its production.

Soon Totsuko decided to gather all its competitors from Sanyo, Toshiba Corporation, Ltd, Victor Company of Japan, Hayakawa Electric Corporation, Matsushita and Standard Co., Ltd and show them its transistors. The technology was really great, and the competitors agreed to buy transistors from Totsuko.

By 1956, the company's financial turnover reached 100 million yen. So the TR-63 portable receiver was released in March 1957, but such a device, due to its high price, did not diverge well.

Next, the company decided that it needed to increase brand awareness through advertising. For this purpose, the company purchased a neon sign Sony, huge size. It was installed in Sukiyaabashi. The cost of this design was about 20 million yen. In the new year, this sign was shown on TV screens. So company brand Sony began to recognize. And already in January 1958, Totsuko officially became Sony Corporation.

The Golden Age of the Corporation

The report of the theft of 4,000 receivers put Sony in the headlines of international newspapers, which meant that Sony became a prominent company. Only recently, a brand that has declared itself, instantly began to be recognized. Subsidiaries of the company were opened outside of Japan.

In two years from 1958-1960, more than 500 thousand copies of a compact transistor radio were sold, but this was not enough. Sony as a company that implements promising ideas, looked in a new direction - television. And so they did, already in 1961 the TV8-301 was developed - the first compact TV. In 1968, the first color TV Trinitron.

Already in 1971, the world saw the first color video cassette (tectonik video), only 4 years later Sony demonstrates the world's first video recorder - Betamax VCR. And 1979 is remembered as the year when the famous Walkman appeared. This player turned out to be a real explosion, sold out worldwide in 100 million copies, becoming the best-selling device of the Japanese company.

In 1981, the world saw the first electronic camera, in 1982 the first CD player, in 1983 Sony, together with Philips, launched the first CDs on the market, in 1985 the first digital VTR and, in 1989, the order specially from IBM for Sony- 3.5 inch drive, the same one that was used for a long time before the development of a more compact 1.4 inch version.

1995 was marked by the release Sony to the new market of game consoles with the PlayStation system. On the first weekend in the US, 100,000 PlayStations were sold for $299.

The release of the Sony PlayStation 2 in March 1999 in Japan, and only on October 26, 2000 in America, only strengthened Sony's position in the entertainment market. In the early years of sales, many people bought the PlayStation 2 as a cheap DVD player - everyone saw the difference between $ 300 and $ 1000+.

In 2004, a lightweight version of the PlayStation 2 appeared - Slim. By the middle of 2007, over 120 million copies of the PS2 model and 1.3 billion games for it had been sold. Despite the release of the PS3, the development of new titles for the PlayStation 2 does not stop to this day.

On September 21, 2007, a new model of the PlayStation Portable was introduced. Retaining all the main functions of the model, the new PSP-2000 received an incredibly large 4.3-inch LCD screen for a portable device with a wide aspect ratio. The model has become thinner by 19% and lighter by 33%.

In August 2011, the company announced a joint venture with Toshiba, Hitachi and the Japanese public-private company Innovation Network Corporation of Japan to produce computer screens for portable equipment. Established in 2012, the JV (70% to INGJ) is expected to be the largest player in the market with annual revenues of $6.6 billion.