Information on Sony

Telephone	+81 367 482111
Adress	Sony City 1 Chome-7-1 Konan, Minato City	Tokyo, TKY 108-0075, Japan
Website	Sony.com
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History & Timeline:

Akio Moroita
1946: Foundation of Sony
by the young Japaneese Engineers Akio Morita
and Masaru Ibuka
as Tokio Tsushin Kogyo Co Ltd (Tokio Telecommunications Engineering Corporation).

The first Logo was a large T.

The very first product was a rize cooking machine,
but unfortunately the product was never ready to go on the market.
The rize was either not ready or it was overcooked.

Tokio Tsushin Kogyo Tape Recorder
1950: lauch of the G type tape recorder made for government use.
The idea behind the first Sony product was to help Japaneese juridical
institutions to tape record court cases, so that it should be no longer necessary
to stenotype..

1955: Birth of the Sony name
When travelling to the US, Akio Morita noticed that Americans
had difficulties to pronounce the company name.
In 1955 he came up with the name "SONY" which is a mix of the Latin word "Sonus"
standing for sound, the basis of the companies activities and the english word "Sunny".
The first product using the Sony brand name was the transsitor radio Sony TR 55.
In January 1958 the company officially rebranded to Sony Corporation.

1955: Launch of the Radio TR 55
which was the first major Sony product using the Sony name.
The radio incorporated five transistors and is powered by four AA batteries.
Akio Morita wanted to promote it as a pocket scize radio
but the problem was that the radio was a little too big
to fit into the pocket of a standard shirt.
According to what Morita later told the editor of the VB.com website
his creativity gave him the idea to order new shirts
with slightly oversized pocket for all Sony sales people.
... and suddenly was born the radio small enough to slide into pocket of his shirt.

Sony TPS L2
1979: Invention of the Walkman
which became one of the companies
most iconic produts.
The very first Walkman was called TPSL2.

1980: Release of the legendary Sony meditating monkey ad

wireless Walkman WM DD9 Walkman WM 703 wireless Walkman WM 805
Later generations of Walkman used the reference Sony WM
like WM DD9, WM 703 or WM 805.

Walkman had many "babies"
like the Dat Walkman (Walkman with professional Digita Audio Tapes),
Discman (for CDs), Data Discman (for CD Rom).

1990: Data Discman was one of the many ancesters of the Internet -
launched by Bruno Faucher. The poster below was a present from Akio Morita
and it was displayed on 12 rue de la Ferronnerie (24 rue des Halles) in the center of Paris.

Akio Moroita in 1981
1993: Akio Morita suffered a stroke while playing tennis.
November 25 1994 he stepped down from company presidency
beeing succeded by Norio Oga.
Morita died October 3 1999.
More on Morita on the Morita Library, Akio Morita.net
or his Facebook fan page

1994: Introduction of the Sony Playstation in December
Playstaion was succeeded by Playstation 2 launched mach 4 2000
and by Playstation 3 launched november 11 2006.

Sony Ericsson Phone
2001: Joint venture with the Swedish mobile phone producer Ericsson
with the intention to enhance Sony's position on the mobile phone market.
2011, October 17 Sony announced that it would acquire Ericsson's stake in Sony Ericsson for $1.47 billion.
The mobile handset business becomes Sony Mobile

more coming soon ....

Name, Logo, Internet Domains:

The first Sony logo was trademarked in 1955. The letters "SONY" were in a square box.
Trying to establish the company's brand identity abroad,
the Sony Logo went through a sequence of changes.

Yasuo Kuroki (1932-2007) joined Sony in 1960,
managing domestic and then international advertising.
He shaped the current Sony logo that came alive in 1973 and
that is similar to the previous 1957 and 1961 version.
The Sony logo is unchanged since 1973.
In the early 1982 a contest was held to modernize the Sony logo.
Akio Morita wanted to add a catchy description around the letter "S"
but he got so many personal complaining letters from Sony Lovers that
he finally decided to stay with the original 1973 version of the logo.
As an adittion to the logo was introduced the slogan
it's a Sony !

Yasuo Kuroki also designed the Sony Building in Ginza and other showrooms.
He was the director of the Kuroki Office and the Toyama Design center until his deat in 2007.

The internet domain Sony.com was registered july 7 1989
which is an unusually early date for the registration of an Internet domain
and is a sign for the technical expertise of the company.
It is hold in the name of Sony of America. Some tech savy people in the US
might have heared about the raising Internet at a very early moment. The domain Playstation.com
was also registered by Sony America January 14 1997.

Sony Japan communicates under the UrL Sony.net which was registered at a much later time January 11 2000.
The .net Address is a sign of the late or difficult understanding of the Internet in the japaneese Sony headquarters,
one of the main reasons for difficulties of the Sony group during the years 2000s.
In fact no Internet savy company communicates with an internet adresse other than .com.
Some people say that a "Brand without .com, is not a Brand"
and not owning the pioneer .com version is a sign for having beeing "late".
Well thanks to some US people within the Sony Organization, Sony would have the possibility to use .com.

Kazua Hirai
The current president is Kazuo Hirai.

Today Sony is one of the World's leading manufacturer of consumer electronics
and professional Video and Audio equipment. The 2011 revenues reach $ 86,65 billion

Contact

Phone: +33 1 42 21 11 11
Address: Hotel Villeroy Bourbon,
11 rue des Déchargeurs, 75001 Paris
Email: b@vb.com
Website: Very Beautiful by VB.com
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