Sony is a Japanese corporation headquartered in Tokyo that provides technology and entertainment services worldwide. Sony originated with the Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation, a small business founded in Japan in 1946 by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita. The corporation officially renamed itself as Sony in the 1950s. Their first product was a transistor radio, which provided access to news for the recently war-torn Japan and became quite popular. Sony began selling the radios in the United States, where demand for them grew.
Sony developed different technologies through the later half of the twentieth century. In the early 1970s, the company developed a video cassette, and in 1979, they created the first Walkman, a portable radio for listening to music on the go. Sony designed disks for computer storage and helped create Blu-Ray DVD technology. One of their most notable creations is PlayStation.
Sony markets itself as a company that “fills the world with emotion through the power of creativity and technology.” The company produces quality products in both the technology and creative media fields. The company has sold off some of its lines of business over the years, among them its Vaio PC laptops, which were expensive compared to other computers. But Sony, which refused to silo itself into one particular industry (thanks to founder Akio Morita), does business in multiple areas, not just technology or creative media. It is a multifaceted corporation with a wide range of products.
Just a few of Sony’s current lines of business include:
Smartphones
Digital cameras
Game consoles
Sound mixing software
Home theatre technology
Sony also manages a music group and film company. The Sony Music Group supports multiple record labels. Sony Pictures Entertainment is a successful film giant and now owns Columbia Pictures.
Sony’s process for creating products and services is called Human-Centered Design. It bases product creation on customer desires and requirements while providing a solution to those needs. Sony also performs usability testing on products during the development process.
