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Sony Corporation
ソニー株式会社
File:Sony Logo.svg
Company typePublic (TYO: 6758; NYSE: SNE)
ISINJP3435000009 Edit this on Wikidata
IndustryConsumer electronics, electronics, financial services & media
FoundedMay 7 1946 (adopted current name in 1958) by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita
HeadquartersJapan Shinagawa, Tokyo, Japan
Key peopleHoward Stringer: Chairman and CEO;
Ryoji Chubachi: President and Electronics CEO
Ken Kutaragi: President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment
ProductsConsumers electronics (audio visual & gaming)
Computer hardware
Financial services
Film, television & music
Semiconductors
others
RevenueIncrease $63.98 billion USD (2006)
Operating income$1.604 billion USD (2006)
Net income$1.058 billion USD (2006)
Total assets26,354,840,000,000 yen (2021) Edit this on Wikidata
Number of employees158,500 (March 31, 2006)
SubsidiariesSony Electronics
Sony Computer Entertainment
Sony Ericsson (50%)
Sony Pictures Entertainment
Sony BMG (50%)
Sony Marketing
Sony Life
Sony Assurance
Sony Bank
others
Websitewww.sony.net

Sony Corporation (Japanese:ソニー株式会社, Sonī Kabushiki-gaisha) is a Japanese multinational corporation and one of the world's largest media conglomerates with revenue of $68.39 billion (as of 2006). It is headquartered in Tokyo. It is one of the leading manufacturers of electronics, video, communications, video games, and information technology products for the consumer and professional markets.

Sony Corporation is an operating-holding company. It is the electronics business unit and the parent company of the Sony Group, which is engaged in business through its six operating segments — electronics, music, games, motion pictures, financial services and other. These make Sony one of the most comprehensive entertainment companies in the world. Sony's principal business operations include Sony Corporation (Sony Electronics in the U.S.), Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Sony Financial Holdings.

Sony recorded consolidated annual sales of approximately $67 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2005, and it employs 158,100 people worldwide. Sony's consolidated sales in the U.S. for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2005 were $18.4 billion. As a semiconductor maker, Sony is among the Worldwide Top 20 Semiconductor Sales Leaders. Its slogan is Sony. Like no other.

Sony has reported a loss of 94% of its profits for the fiscal second quarter of 2006, and has lost roughly 40% of its value from 2001 to 2006.

History

Masaru Ibuka, the co-founder of Sony

In 1945, after World War II, Masaru Ibuka started a radio repair shop in a bombed-out building in Tokyo. The next year he was joined by his colleague Akio Morita, and they founded a company called Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo K.K., which translates in English to Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation. The company built Japan's first tape recorder called the Type-G.

In the early 1950s, Ibuka traveled in the United States and heard about Bell Labs' invention of the transistor. He convinced Bell to license the transistor technology to his Japanese company. While most American companies were researching the transistor for its military applications, Ibuka looked to apply it to communications. While the American companies Regency and Texas Instruments built transistor radios first, it was Ibuka's company that made the first commercially successful transistor radios.

In August 1955, Sony produced its first coat-pocket sized transistor radio they registered as the TR-55 model. In 1956, Sony reportedly manufactured about 40,000 of its Model TR-72 box-like portable transistor radios and exported the model to North America, the Netherlands and Germany.

That same year they made the TR-6, a coat pocket radio which was used by the company to create its "SONY boy" advertising character. The following year, 1957, Sony came out with the TR-63 model, then the smallest (112 × 71 × 32 mm) transistor radio in commercial production. It was a worldwide commercial success.

University of Arizona professor Michael Brian Schiffer, Ph.D., says, "Sony was not first, but its transistor radio was the most successful. The TR-63 of 1957 cracked open the U.S. market and launched the new industry of consumer microelectronics." By the mid 1950s, American teens had begun buying portable transistor radios in huge numbers, helping to propel the fledgling industry from an estimated 100,000 units in 1955 to 5,000,000 units by the end of 1958. However, this huge growth in portable transistor radio sales that saw Sony rise to be the dominant player in the consumer electronics field was not because of the consumers who had bought the earlier generation of tube radio consoles, but was driven by a distinctly new American phenomenon at the time called Rock and Roll.

Company name

When 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 company occasionally used the acronym "Totsuko" in Japan, but Morita discovered that Americans had trouble pronouncing that name, during his visit to the United States. Another early name that was tried out for a while was "Tokyo Teletech" until Morita discovered that there was an American company already using Teletech as a brand name.

The name "Sony" was chosen for the brand as a mix of the Latin word sonus, which is the root of sonic and sound, the English word "sunny", and from the word Sonny-boys which is Japanese slang for "whiz kids". However "Sonny" was thought to sound too much like the Japanese saying soh-nee which means business goes bad. Morita pushed for a word that does not exist in any language so that they could claim the word "Sony" as their own (which paid off when they sued a candy producer who also used the name who claimed that "Sony" was just an existing word in some language).

At the time of the change, it was extremely unusual for a Japanese company to use Roman letters instead of Chinese characters to spell its name. The move was not without opposition: TTK's principal bank at the time, Mitsui, had strong feelings about the name. They pushed for a name such as Sony Electronic Industries, or Sony Teletech. Akio Morita was firm, however, as he did not want the company name tied to any particular industry. Eventually, both Ibuka and Mitsui Bank's chairman gave their approval.

As a result of this persistence, Sony has now developed into a leading international manufacturer producing a variety of products throughout the electronics market, music and gaming industries, film, finance and many more besides.

Sony Electronics' notable products and technologies

See also: List of Sony Trademarks

A * denotes a proprietary format. Question marks indicate products no longer sold as of 2006 with an unknown year of withdrawal.

1950s

A 1969 Sony TC-630 reel-to-reel recorder

1960s

1970s

1980s

MSX computer
NEWS workstation
MiniDisc Walkman

1990s

File:Vaio.gif
VAIO brand of computers

2000s

Question marks indicate products no longer sold as of 2006, but the year of withdrawal is unknown

Sony is one of the few electronics companies with manufacturing and assembly plants in the United States of America.

Management

On March 7 2005, Sony Corp. announced that Nobuyuki Idei will step down as Chairman and Group CEO and will be replaced by Briton Sir Howard Stringer, current Chairman and CEO of Sony Corporation of America, Corporate Executive Officer, Vice Chairman and COO Sony Entertainment Business Group. Sony's decision to replace Idei with the British Howard Stringer will mark the first time that a foreigner will run a major Japanese electronics firm. Sony Corp. also announced on the same date that current president, Kunitake Ando, will step down and be replaced by Ryoji Chubachi.

Mergers and acquisitions

Corporate governance

Current members of the board of directors of Sony are: Peter Bonfeld, Ryoji Chubachi, Sakie Fukushima, Hirobumi Kawano, Yotaro Kobayashi, Göran Lindahl, Yoshihiko Miyauchi, Akishige Okada, Howard Stringer, Fueo Sumita, and Yoshiaki Yamauchi.

Proprietary formats

Sony has historically been notable for creating its own in-house standards for new recording and storage technologies instead of adopting those of other manufacturers and standards bodies. 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 adopted the format.

Sony 1080i HD Camera

Since then, Sony has continued to introduce its own versions of storage technologies, with varying success. Examples include:

  • Video8/Hi8/Digital8 — In 1985, Sony introduced the Handycam, one of the first Video8 cameras. Much smaller than the competition's VHS and Betamax video cameras, Video8 became very popular in the consumer camcorder market.
  • MiniDisc was created by Sony for use in portable music players. They were designed to share the market of Walkman products. Low consumer adoption has seen the product fail outside of the Japanese market.
  • Sony also makes heavy use of its Memory Stick flash memory cards for digital cameras and other Sony portable devices; however, few other manufacturers are also making use of this technology.
  • One successful attempt was the introduction of the 90mm micro floppy diskettes (better known as 3.5-inch floppy disks), which Sony had developed at a time when there were 4" floppy disks and a lot of variations from different companies to replace the then on-going 5.25" floppy disks. Sony had great success and the format became dominant; 3.5" floppy disks gradually became obsolete as they were replaced by more current media formats.
  • The DVD: In the early 1990s two high-density optical storage standards were being developed: one was the MultiMedia Compact Disc (MMCD), backed by Philips and Sony, and the other was the Super Density disc (SD), supported by Toshiba and many others. Philips and Sony abandoned their MMCD format and agreed upon Toshiba's SD format with two modifications based on MMCD technology.
  • Sony attempted, unsuccessfully, to compete with the Iomega Zip drive and Imation SuperDisk with their HiFD.
  • In 1993, Sony challenged the industry standard Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound format with its newer and more advanced proprietary motion picture digital audio format called SDDS (Sony Dynamic Digital Sound). This format employed eight channels (7.1) of audio opposed to just six used in Dolby Digital 5.1 at the time. Unlike Dolby Digital, SDDS utilized a method of backup by having mirrored arrays of bits on both sides of the film which acted as a measure of reliability in case the film was partially damaged. Ultimately, SDDS has been vastly overshadowed by the preferred DTS (Digital Theatre System) and Dolby Digital standards in the motion picture industry. SDDS was solely developed for use in the theatre circuit; Sony never intended to develop a home theatre version of SDDS.
  • Since the introduction of the MiniDisc format, Sony has attempted to promote its own audio compression technologies under the ATRAC brand, against more widely used formats like MP3. Until late 2004, Sony's Network Walkman line of digital portable music players did not support the MP3 de facto standard natively, although the software SonicStage provided with them would convert MP3 files into the ATRAC or ATRAC3 formats.
  • Sony is currently touting its Blu-ray Disc optical disc format, which is likely to compete with Toshiba's HD DVD. As of quarter one of 2006, Blu-ray Disc has the backing of every major motion picture studio except Universal.
  • Sony and Philips jointly developed the Sony-Philips digital interface format (S/PDIF).
  • Sony and Philips introduced the high-fidelity audio system SACD in 1999, but it has since been entrenched in a format war with DVD-Audio. At present, neither has gained a major foothold with the general public. CDs are preferred by consumers because of their ubiquitous presence in consumer devices.
  • OpenMG, a digital rights management system.
  • ARccOS, a copy control system for DVDs.
  • Universal Media Disc (UMD) is an optical disc medium developed by Sony for use on the PlayStation Portable. It can hold 1.8 gigabytes of data, which can include games, movies, music, or a combination thereof. Though sales of UMD movies were mediocre, sales of UMD games sky rocketed.
  • MpegMovieVX (Also known as MPEG-VX, EX and HQX) is the video format used in Sony Cyber-shot digital still cameras. It is a proprietary implementation of the MPEG1 standard, which Sony first used in their DSC-F55 model in 1999 and has been using ever since. The format is undocumented and has only recently been reverse engineered by the company Makayama, who use it in their consumer software Digital Camera Media Studio .

Controversies

Fictitious movie reviewer

In July 2000, a marketing executive working for Sony Corporation created a fictitious film critic, David Manning, who gave consistently good reviews for releases from Sony subsidiary Columbia Pictures, which generally received poor reviews amongst real critics.

A parody in 2004 was made involving Garfield the movie (which ironically had mostly all negative reviews), which has David Manning giving it two thumbs up because he will like any movie. However, it was made by 20th Century Fox, not Columbia Pictures.

Digital rights management

Main article: 2005 Sony CD copy protection scandal

In October 2005, it was revealed by Mark Russinovich of Sysinternals that Sony BMG Music Entertainment's music CDs had installed a rootkit on the user's computer as a DRM measure (called Extended Copy Protection by its creator, British company First 4 Internet), which was extremely difficult to detect or to remove. This constitutes a crime in many countries, and poses a major security risk to affected users, as well as a small drain on computer system resources. The uninstaller Sony initially provided removed the rootkit, but in turn installed a dial-home program that posed an even greater security risk — a fact that drew further criticism of Sony's actions. Sony eventually provided an actual uninstaller that removed all of Sony's DRM program from the user's computer. Sony BMG is facing several class action lawsuits regarding this matter.

Advertisements

To commemorate the tenth anniversary of the PlayStation (PS) gaming console in Italy, Sony released an ad depicting a man smiling towards the camera and wearing on his head a crown of thorns with button symbols (Triangle, O, X, Square). At the bottom, the copy read as "Ten Years of Passion". This outraged the Vatican as well as many local Catholics, prompting comments such as "Sony went too far" and "Vatican excommunicates Sony". After the incident, the campaign was quickly discontinued.

Sony also admitted in late 2005 to hiring graffiti artists to spray paint advertisements for their PlayStation Portable game system in seven major U.S. cities including New York City, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. The mayor of Philadelphia has filed a cease and desist order and may file a criminal complaint. According to Sony, they are paying businesses and building owners for the right to graffiti their walls. As of early January 2006, Sony has no plans to keep or withdraw them.

In July 2006, Sony released a Dutch advertising campaign featuring a white model dressed entirely in white and a black model garbed in black. The first ad featured the white model clutching the face of the black model. The words "White is coming" headlined one of the ads. The ad has been troduction of the MiniDisc format, Sony has attempted to promote its own audio compression technologies under the ATRAC brand, against more widely used formats like MP3. Until late 2004, Sony's Network Walkman line of digital portable music players did not support the MP3 de facto standard natively, although the software SonicStage provided with them would convert MP3 files into the ATRAC or ATRAC3 formats.

  • Sony is currently touting its Blu-ray Disc optical disc format, which is likely to compete with Toshiba's HD DVD. As of quarter one of 2006, Blu-ray Disc has the backing of every major motion picture studio except Universal.
  • Sony and Philips jointly developed the Sony-Philips digital interface format (S/PDIF).
  • Sony and Philips introduced the high-fidelity audio system SACD in 1999, but it has since been entrenched in a format war with DVD-Audio. At present, neither has gained a major foothold with the general public. CDs are preferred by consumers because of their ubiquitous presence in consumer devices.
  • OpenMG, a digital rights management system.
  • ARccOS, a copy control system for DVDs.
  • Universal Media Disc (UMD) is an optical disc medium developed by Sony for use on the PlayStation Portable. It can hold 1.8 gigabytes of data, which can include games, movies, music, or a combination thereof. Though sales of UMD movies were mediocre, sales of UMD games sky rocketed.
  • MpegMovieVX (Also known as MPEG-VX, EX and HQX) is the video formatroduction of the MiniDisc format, Sony has attempted to promote its own audio compression technologies under the ATRAC brand, against more widely used formats like MP3. Until late 2004, Sony's Network Walkman line of digital portable music players did not support the MP3 de facto standard natively, although the software SonicStage provided with them would convert MP3 files into the ATRAC or ATRAC3 formats.
  • Sony is currently touting its Blu-ray Disc optical disc format, which is likely to compete with Toshiba's HD DVD. As of quarter one of 2006, Blu-ray Disc has the backing of every major motion picture studio except Universal.
  • Sony and Philips jointly developed the Sony-Philips digital interface format (S/PDIF).
  • Sony and Philips introduced the high-fidelity audio system SACD in 1999, but it has since been entrenched in a format war with DVD-Audio. At present, neither has gained a major foothold with the general public. CDs are preferred by consumers because of their ubiquitous presence in consumer devices.
  • OpenMG, a digital rights management system.
  • ARccOS, a copy control system for DVDs.
  • Universal Media Disc (UMD) is an optical disc medium developed by Sony for use on the PlayStation Portable. It can hold 1.8 gigabytes of data, which can include games, movies, music, or a combination thereof. Though sales of UMD movies were mediocre, sales of UMD games sky rocketed.
  • MpegMovieVX (Also known as MPEG-VX, EX and HQX) is the video formaviewed as racist by critics. A Sony spokesperson responded that the ad does not have a racist message, saying that it was only trying to depict the contrast between the black PSP model and the new ceramic white PSP. Other pictures of the ad campaign include the black model overpowering the white model.

Legal

In 2002, Sony Computer Entertainment America, marketer of the popular PlayStation game consoles, was sued by Immersion Corp. of San Jose, California which claimed that Sony's PlayStation "Dual Shock" controllers infringed on Immersion's patents. In 2004, a federal jury agreed with Immersion, awarding the company US$82 million in damages. A U.S. district court judge ruled on the matter in March, 2005 and not only agreed with the federal jury's ruling but also added another US$8.7 million in damages. Likely as a result of this, the controller for the upcoming Playstation 3 eschews rumble in favor of motion sensing. Microsofts Corp.'s XBOX was also sued. Washington Post: Pay Judgment Or Game Over, Sony Warned

Consumer criticism

Many of Sony's proprietary measures for media including MiniDisc, Betamax tapes, and other media have generated public outcry. Due to JVC's willingness to license the VHS format to other vendors, Sony's Betamax failed in the general consumer market, rendering it a marketing flop (a related, but not identical, format called Betacam is still used in professional film and video production due to its superior quality). A growing number of consumers complain that Sony's electronic products are no longer as durable as in the past.

Batteries

On August 14, 2006, Sony and Dell admitted to major flaws in several Sony batteries that could result in the battery overheating and catching fire. As a result they recalled over 4.1 million laptop batteries in the largest computer-related recall to that point in history. The cost of this recall is being shared between Dell and Sony. Dell also confirmed that one of its laptops caught fire in Illinois. This recall also prompted Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to order the companies to investigate the troubles with the batteries. The ministry said they must report on their findings and draw up a plan to prevent future problems by the end of August, or face a fine under Japan's consumer safety laws.

Ten days later on August 24, 2006, Apple Computer recalled 1.8 million Sony built batteries after receiving nine reports of batteries overheating, including two customers who suffered minor burns, and additional reports of property damage.

On September 19, 2006, Toshiba announced it was recalling 340 000 Sony laptop batteries. This recall, however, is not related to the recalls by Apple and Dell, as the batteries are known to cause the laptops to sometimes run out of power. No injuries or other accidents have been reported, according to Toshiba spokesman Keisuke Omori.

On September 23, 2006, Sony announced of its investigation of a Lenovo ThinkPad T43 laptop overheated and caught fire in Los Angeles International Airport on September 16, atroduction of the MiniDisc format, Sony has attempted to promote its own audio compression technologies under the ATRAC brand, against more widely used formats like MP3. Until late 2004, Sony's Network Walkman line of digital portable music players did not support the MP3 de facto standard natively, although the software SonicStage provided with them would convert MP3 files into the ATRAC or ATRAC3 formats.

  • Sony is currently touting its Blu-ray Disc optical disc format, which is likely to compete with Toshiba's HD DVD. As of quarter one of 2006, Blu-ray Disc has the backing of every major motion picture studio except Universal.
  • Sony and Philips jointly developed the Sony-Philips digital interface format (S/PDIF).
  • Sony and Philips introduced the high-fidelity audio system SACD in 1999, but it has since been entrenched in a format war with DVD-Audio. At present, neither has gained a major foothold with the general public. CDs are preferred by consumers because of their ubiquitous presence in consumer devices.
  • OpenMG, a digital rights management system.
  • ARccOS, a copy control system for DVDs.
  • Universal Media Disc (UMD) is an optical disc medium developed by Sony for use on the PlayStation Portable. It can hold 1.8 gigabytes of data, which can include games, movies, music, or a combination thereof. Though sales of UMD movies were mediocre, sales of UMD games sky rocketed.
  • MpegMovieVX (Also known as MPEG-VX, EX and HQX) is the video forman incident that was confirmed by Lenovo. On September 28, 2006, Lenovo and IBM made the global recall of 526 000 laptop batteries.

On September 28, 2006, Sony announced a global battery exchange program in response to growing consumer concerns.

On October 2, 2006, Hewlett-Packard (HP) determined that it is not necessary for HP to join the global battery replacement program.

On October 3, 2006, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported that Sony was aware of faults in its notebook PC batteries in December 2005 but failed to fully study the problem.

On October 16, 2006 it was reported that Fujitsu, Toshiba, Hitachi may seek compensation from Sony over the battery recalls.

Lik Sang and Grey Goods Importation

In August of 2005, Sony engaged in a legal tussle with Hong Kong import/export firm Lik-Sang, a popular distributor of Asian electronics. Lik Sang had sold imported PSPs to UK customers before the UK release date, which Sony alleged was a breach of their trademark rights. Lik Sang continued shipping PSPs, claiming Hong Kong's laws allow an item to be traded freely once it appears in a market anywhere in the world. This latest battle is part of the ongoing war Sony is waging with companies which import so-called grey goods - Asian versions of its products - to the European market without its permission.

On October 23, 2006, the High Court in London ruled the shipments of PSPs were indeed in breach of Sony's rights and that it was illegal for the firm to import the Japanese version of PlayStation 3's into Europe ahead of its official release in March 2007. The following day, Lik Sang posted a message on their website claiming they had been forced out of business due to Sony's legal action. Sony responded in a statement saying that Lik Sang had not contested the case, thus incurring no legal fees, and had not paid any damages or costs to Sony.

Nonetheless, Lik Sang has announced that it is closing its doors, as of October 24 2006, alleging it was the result of multiple lawsuits from Sony. In announcing its closure, Lik Sang named Sony executives it said had used its service to get the PSPs before they went on official release in Europe, including Ray Maguire (Managing Director, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd), Alan Duncan (UK Marketing Director, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd), Chris Sorrell (Creative Director, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd), Rob Parkin (Development Director, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Limited). Sony does not deny that staff bought the game gadgets from Lik-Sang but said it was done to check the nature of the goods that were being sold.

The electronics giant has been criticised for its decision to pursue firms such as Lik Sang. Critics argue that gamers should be able to get their hands on products as soon as they are released in Asia. Sony said that it was using the full scope of the law to block the importing of PlayStation 3's in order to protect consumers from being sold hardware that didn't conform to European safety standards. Lik-Sang has said that all the PSP consoles it sold in Europe conformed with EU and UK consumer safety regulations. Its decision to cease trading has elicited a barrage of comments from gamers, annoyed at the way Sony has pursued the firm. Sony denies that its actions had anything to do with the closure of the Lik Sang website.

Trivia

  • In the 1990 movie Crazy People, the character played by Dudley Moore and his advertising team show the successful campaign to Sony, the final of the movie shows the TV spot of the company.
  • In the popular 1990s British sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart, Sony is referred to as an American company with actor Nicholas Lyndhurst saying that the initials of SONY stand for "Somewhere Outside New York" (see backronym).
  • Along the same lines, internally, Sony employees may say that SONY stands for "Soon Only Not Yet" when they are waiting for a new product or product information.
  • In an episode of South Park, "Tsst", Cartman is playing on his Xbox 360 before he is interrupted by his nanny. You can see for a second his television and video player say the word "Fony", which is a parody of the Sony brand name also appearing in the episode "The Return of Chef".
  • In the Family Guy episode, "A Very Special Family Guy Freakin' Christmas", Peter mistakenly gives away all of the Griffin's Christmas presents to a poor family. He has a discussion with their wife about the mishap and then sees her two sons fighting over a VCR, in which one says: "It's my turn to use the sex box!", followed by the other saying: "It's my sex box, and her name is Sony!".
  • In The Simpsons episode "Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield", the family goes to buy a new television from a store offering counterfeit electronics. One of the brands they are offered is "Sorny".
  • In the forthcoming James Bond movie Casino Royale, actual Sony products are used, making the first Bond movie with entirely genuine gadgets.
  • In the Futurama episode, "Amazon Women in the Mood", a Stereo speaker is shown with the brand 'Sonya' emblazoned on its front.
  • In the PC game The Sims 2 there is a plasma TV players can buy, called "Soma", which is a parody of the "Sony" brand name.

See also

References

  1. ^ MSN Money
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  43. "Sony admits to buying grey goods". 2006-10-25. Retrieved 2006-10-25.
  44. "Lik Sang Announces Out of Business". 2006-10-24. Retrieved 2006-10-24.
  • Made in Japan by Akio Morita and SONY, Harper Collins (1994)
  • SONY: The Private Life by John Nathan, Houghton Mifflin (1999)
  • SONY Radio, Sony Transistor Radio 35th Anniversary 1955-1990 — information booklet (1990)
  • The Portable Radio in American Life by University of Arizona Professor Michael Brian Schiffer, Ph.D. (The University of Arizona Press, 1991).
  • The Japan Project: Made in Japan. — a documentary about Sony's early history in the U.S. by Terry Sanders.

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