Economist writes about the breadth and depth of Sony’s ambitions:
[Sony’s] are in many ways even bolder than those of the other media giants. Like them, it believes that the spread of broadband and the shift from analogue to digital require media firms to find new ways to sell their content to consumersin Sony’s case, mostly music, films and video games.
More importantly, however, Sony is pursuing the other big idea in the media giants’ growth strategy: vertical integration. But once again, it is doing it in its own way. The difference is that Sony is reaching much further down the chain, to what Mr Idei believes really matters: the televisions, personal computers, game consoles and hand-held devices through which all of that wonderful content will one day be streaming.
Sony’s networking strategy assumes that these audio-visual and computer devices, besides talking to one another, will also share content with a wide range of smaller gadgets, from its cameras and music players to its mobile phones and hand-held computers.
Mr Idei believes that, by continuing to link together devices such as these, Sony can carry on both selling new gadgets and encouraging people to keep paying for music and videos.
Sony+T
