Sony Sony logo. Usage of these images is restricted. Trademarks on this page belong to their owner. See Wikipedia:Image use policy Sony (in katakana: ソニー) is a consumer electronics corporation based in Tokyo, Japan. It was founded by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita on May 7, 1946 as the Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering with about 20 employees. Their first consumer product, in the late 1940s, was a rice boiler. As it grew into a major international corporation, Sony acquired other companies with longer histories, including Columbia Records (the oldest continuously produced brand name in recorded sound, dating back to 1888).Today Norio Ohga is Honorary Chairman,Nobuyuki Idei is Chairman and CEO,and Kunitake Ando is president of the corporation. When Tokyo Tsushin 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 name "Sony" was chosen as a mix of the Latin word sonus, which is the root of sonic and sound, and the English word "sunny." At the time of the change, it was extremely odd for a Japanese company to use Roman letters to spell its name, much less the phonetic script used in the Japanese writing, instead of Chinese characters. 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. In 1988, Sony acquired CBS (Columbia) Records Group from CBS. It was renamed "Sony Music Entertainment". In 2000, Sony had sales of US $63 billion and 189,700 employees. Sony acquired Aiwa corporation in 2002. Sony also owns television channels in India and channels aimed at Indian communities in Europe. Sony has historically been notable for pushing its own in-house standards for new recording and storage technologies, which are often different from those of other manufacturers or of market trends and standards. 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 had no choice but to capitulate. Sony has continued the same tactic with subsequent technologies; for example, it pushes its MiniDisc digital recording format (intended to replace cassette tapes) whilst rivals favour CD-R and MP3 instead. Sony also makes heavy use of its Memory Stick flash memory modules for digital cameras and other portable devices, which few other manufacturers use. It also attempted to compete with the Iomega Zip drive and Imation Superdisk with their HiFD, but this proved a severe failure. Since the introduction of the MiniDisc format, Sony has attempted to promote its proprietary audio compression technologies under the ATRAC brand, against more widely-used formats like MP3 and Windows Media Audio. Until late 2004, Sony's various digital portable music players did not support even the de facto standard MP3 natively, although the software provided with them would convert MP3 files into the ATRAC formats. In 2004, the London Borough of Camden, England brought Anti Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) against Sony Music UK and BMG for alleged fly posting. Illegal fly posting by the two companies is thought to save them £8 million a year in advertising costs in Camden and cost the Borough £250,000 to clean up. Failing to comply with an ASBO can result in a jail sentence of up to 5 years. On July 20th, 2004, the EU approved a 50-50 merger between Sony Music Entertainment and BMG. The new company will be called Sony BMG and will, together with RIAA partner Universal, control 60% of the world wide music market. On September 13th 2004 a Sony-led consortium finalised the deal to purchase famous film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for about $5 Billion, including $2Bn in debts. Film production Sony Pictures Entertainment, including: Columbia Pictures TriStar Pictures Mandalay Entertainment (partial interest) Phoenix Pictures (partial interest) Sony Pictures Classics Sony Pictures Entertainment Columbia-Tri Star Home Video Truimph Films Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer United Artist Screen Gems Music business Sony/ATV Music Publishing Sony BMG Music Entertainment Columbia Records - popular music Epic Records - popular music Legacy Recordings - rare and collectible in many genres Sony Classical - classical music Sony Nashville - country music Sony Wonder - children’s and family entertainment Video and online games Sony Computer Entertainment - PlayStation Notable products The following is a partial list of products marketed by Sony: A Sony TC-630 reel-to-reel recorder, a consumer product from 1969. Reel-to-reel tape recorders Video tape recording: U-Matic Betamax Betacam Computers: VAIO CLIÉ Video game consoles: PlayStation (aka PSone) PlayStation 2 (aka PS2) PlayStation 3 (not yet released) PlayStation Portable PStwo Computer printers: Sony PictureStation DPP-EX50 Removable media: Blu-Ray Disc MiniDisc Memory Stick HiFD Robotics: Aibo Qrio Personal stereo: Walkman Discman Televisions: FD Trinitron LCD WEGA Grand WEGA Projectors: Cineza Digital video cameras: Sony DCR-PC330 Ebook display device Sony Librie EBR-1000EP See also ATRAC Sony Connect Sony Ericsson Time shifting External links Sony Corporation: Global Headquarters Snopes article on the name [this is very bad] Most Popular Articles: Music    Musical Instruments    Guitar    Classical Music    History    Music Definition    Country Music    Rock Music    Pop Music    Hip Hop    Rap    DJ    Video Games    Casino Games    Poker    Blackjack    Casinos    Real Estate    Loan    Auction    eBay    Marketing    Search Engine Optimization    File Sharing    MP3    Music Industry    Kazaa    Internet    Supermodel    Fashion    Fashion Designers    Erotica    Modeling    Clothing    Boots    Shoes    Diamond Engagement Rings    Diamond    Rugs    Gospel Music    Affiliate    E-Commerce    Radio This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html You may copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license. You must provide a link to http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html To view or edit this article at Wikipedia go to http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony