It was developed in 1979 by Sony. Akio Morita is the founder of Sony. Exposing the lies and the whole truth about the founding of Sony

Among fans of social networks, the model, actress and fashion blogger Sonya Yesman is quite famous. The charming girl gives advice to subscribers on how to eat, dress, and apply makeup. And also travel the world.

Sonya Yesman was born in June 1995 in St. Petersburg. But when the girl was 5 years old, the family immigrated to Canada and settled in Toronto. A few years later, Sonya's parents divorced. The head of the family returned to Russia. My daughter had a hard time with this difficult period. Relationships with classmates did not work out. The girl gained a lot of weight. Due to lack of communication with peers, Sonya Yesman dropped out of school and switched to home schooling. The girl dreamed of returning to Russia and began to independently learn the language, which she had almost forgotten.

My daughter was helped out of a prolonged depression by her mother, who managed to set the girl up for a positive outlook on the world around her. Sonya began to study school subjects intensively and managed to graduate from school six months earlier than her peers.

Modeling business

At school, Sonya Yesman dreamed of becoming an actress. My mother supported me in this and even accompanied me to the courses. acting, classes in which were held on weekends. The girl turned out to be capable, and soon Sonya was invited to play in episodes of several films.


At that time, Esman had the figure of a model. The girl lost a lot of weight by giving up meat. With a height of 173 cm, the girl weighed 45 kg. This happened as a result of the severe shock the girl experienced after watching a program about the killing of animals.

A Canadian modeling agency invited 16-year-old Sonya Yesman to star in a commercial. The girl was noticed, and soon Sonya was offered to sign a lucrative long-term contract with the large Canadian agency Plutino Models.

Blogger

At the age of 17, Sonya Esman’s modeling biography began. After the release of the first commercial, the girl decided to create her own website classisinternal.com. The first videos of the model appeared on a personal blog in 2010. Esman films videos with a camera. The video blog soon gained popularity in Canada, the USA, as well as in Europe and Russia.

The model advocates a healthy lifestyle. For one period, Sonya Yesman was a supporter of vegetarianism. But at some point she began to feel unwell and returned to her normal diet. The blogger honestly admitted about all this, as well as the risks of veganism, on her own channel.

However, from healthy image The model never thought of giving up her life. The blogger plays sports, does not smoke, and does not drink alcohol. He does not consume fast food and eats only boiled meat. Every morning he starts with a run and a developed set of special exercises.

The girl also has her own style of clothing, which her subscribers like. Followers try to imitate their favorite model. And she, in turn, gives them valuable advice on this matter.

Sonya Yesman has a page in “ Instagram", which is replete with dozens of photos from different countries. In her own video blog, the girl shares valuable advice on this matter: she talks about the countries she has visited, posting videos from the most beautiful places. It also tells you where you can have a good and inexpensive vacation, and what sights to see.

Fashion occupies a central place in Esman's video blog. New styles and trends, practical advice for teenagers, what clothes are best to wear and how to combine things. How to apply makeup correctly and what to do to avoid looking vulgar. Sonya also shares her own experience on how to overcome problems in communicating with peers and believe in your own strength.

By the way, Sonya Yesman managed to improve her relationship with her father thanks to her video blog. The girl is already in contact with her father, who supports his daughter and is proud of her success.

To her friends – that’s what the girl calls her own subscribers – Sonya advises to live, radiating radiance and positive emotions. Esman’s critics respond that it is easy to give positive advice by collaborating with many modeling agencies and fashion publications that give models clothes and accessories from brands such as “,” Givenchy, “Dolce &” and “Alexander Wang.”

Sonya Yesman answers her opponents that her wardrobe contains items from second-hand stores and vintage markets. Repeatedly, the clothes worn by a fashion model have become the subject of beauty research by journalists. Sonya loves dresses in the style of the 70s, short fur coats, jackets, things with bright stripes, shirts and knitwear. The girl is partial to hats and sunglasses.

In 2016, Sonya's followers noticed that in the photo the lips of their favorite began to look larger. The girl was credited with going to a plastic clinic for Botox injections and rhinoplasty. But the blogger herself refrained from commenting.

Personal life

The model and blogger has 4 tattoos on her body. But these images are quite modest and small in size. Most often, Sony fans see a design on the wrist, which serves as decoration.


Sonya Yesman loves animals. On official channel and pages on the social network there are a lot of funny pictures with animals and the blogger’s favorite pet, the parrot Pasha.

Another hobby of the girl is driving a car. The girl prefers Mercedes among car brands.

As far as can be judged from messages on social networks, Sonya Yesman’s personal life is not a topic on which she communicates on her blog and opens up with subscribers. For a long time, followers wondered who the lucky guy was next to the beauty.


At the end of 2015, a candid photo shoot by Sonya Yesman and appeared online, in which it was clear that the young people were connected by something more than just playing for the camera. Soon information about Roma and Sonya’s romance began to spread online. But one day a young man posted the blogger’s phone number on his own page in “

Gadget manufacturers

Sony Corporation is a Japanese multinational conglomerate. Its diversified business is focused primarily on electrical appliances (TVs, refrigerators, game consoles), as well as entertainment and financial services. The company can be called one of the leading manufacturers of electronic products for the consumer and professional markets. In the 2014 Fortune Global 500 ranking, Sony was ranked 105th.

Sony Corporation is a business unit of the parent company Sony Group, responsible for the production of electronics. The four main operating segments are electronics (including video games, network services and medical business), movies, music and finance - make Sony one of the most comprehensive entertainment companies in the world.

Different divisions are responsible for different segments. Sony is one of the Top 20 leaders in the sale of semiconductors, and is also the third largest manufacturer of televisions in the world (after and).

Sony's corporate group focuses primarily on electronics manufacturing and financial services (such as the insurance and banking sectors). Its foundation is associated with the names of Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuki.

They chose the name "Sony" as a derivative of "sonus" (translated from Latin as "sound"), as well as from the word "sonny", which in English means “sons” (in the early 50s in Japan, “sonny boys” meant presentable and intelligent young people).

By the way, the use of Latin letters in the name was very unusual for a Japanese company. It was Morita who insisted on such a name, demanding that it not be tied to any industry (despite the fact that many were against it).

Future Japanese industrialist and co-founder of Sony, Masaru Ibuki, was born in 1908. He graduated from Waseda University in 1933, after which he got a job in a photochemical laboratory where film was processed. Following this, fate decreed that he enlist in the Imperial Japanese Navy.

At that time the Second was going on world war, and Ibuka was a member of the Naval Research Committee. In 1946, he left the laboratory and the Navy and founded a radio repair shop.

The co-founder of the new enterprise was Akio Morita.


In doing so, Masaru played a critical role in licensing transistor technology to Sony in the 1950s. As a result, Sony became one of the first to pioneer the use of this technology for peaceful purposes. Ibuka was president of the firm for over twenty years and then chairman between '71 and '76.

In 1961 he was awarded the Medal of Honor with a blue ribbon, and in subsequent years he was also awarded various orders and titles. Masaru received an honorary doctorate from Sophia University in Tokyo. He is the author of books on child psychology and learning.

Ibuka died in '97 at the age of 89. He was posthumously awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun.

Akio Morita, the future Japanese businessman and co-founder of Sony, was born in 1921 in Nagoya. His family had been making miso, soy sauce and sake in the village of Kosugaya (now part of Tokonoma City) on the west coast of the Chita Peninsula in Aichi Prefecture since 1665.

Akio was the eldest of four children, and his father trained him so that he could later run the family business. However, Morita found his true calling in something completely different thanks to his passion for physics and mathematics. He graduated from Osaka Imperial University in 1944 with a degree in physics.

During World War II, he also served in the Imperial Japanese Navy and worked for the scientific research committee, where he met Masaru Ibuka.


Akio Morita's family was Sony's largest shareholder and contributed a lot of money, supporting it financially early on. In 1950, the company sold its first tape recorder in Japan; Then it was the turn of the pocket radio. Akio Morita was the initiator of many of Sony's inventions.

It was he who came up with the idea of ​​giving the radio a “pocket” format. In 1994, Morita resigned as chairman of the company after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage. He was replaced by Norio Oga. Akio Morita was an author of books on schooling; also wrote an autobiography.

His most scandalous work was his co-authorship with politician S. Ishihara. In this work, they criticized the American business world, and called on the Japanese to take an independent position in running their own affairs. These chapters were later removed from the English version of the book.

Like Ibuka, Akio Morita received various medals and awards, including the Royal Society of Arts Medal in '82, the Legion of Honor two years later, and the Order of the Sacred Treasure from the Emperor of Japan in 1991.


In 1993 Morita received the British Order of Chivalry, and so on. He died in 1999 at the age of 78 from pneumonia. He was posthumously awarded the Grand Ribbon of the Order of the Rising Sun.

So, the Sony company actually traces its history back to the Second World War, when its two founders met. In 1946, Masaru Ibuka opened an electronics store in a Tokyo department store that had been damaged by bombing. The new company had an initial capital of $530 and a total of eight employees.

The following year, Masaru was joined by his colleague, Akio Morita, and they founded a company called Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo.

It was this company that became the creator of the first Japanese cassette recorder (model Type-G). In the summer of 1955, the first Japanese transistor radio, the Sony TR-55, appeared. In 1958 the company name was changed to Sony.


In 1975, Sony launched a new videotape recording format - Betamax. Unfortunately, the following years were marked by the infamous “video format war.” In the 1980s, Sony supplied Betamax systems for VCRs, competing with JVC's VHS format.

In the end, VHS did manage to become a worldwide standard, and Sony also used the format. However, it is worth noting the following fact: although Betamax can actually be considered an obsolete format, the professionally oriented Betacam format (based on Betamax) is still used, especially in the television industry, although to a lesser extent due to the spread of digital technology and high resolution.

In 1985, Handycam and Video8 format products came along, which became popular on consumer market. Two years later, a new digital audio standard, 4 mm DAT, appeared.

In 1979, the company introduced the world's first portable music player, the Walkman, which supported compact audio cassettes. In 2004 Sony released Hi-MD. This was a format that allowed audio to be played and recorded on the new 1GB Hi-MD discs.

In addition to this, the new format made it possible to store computer files - documents, videos and photographs. It should be added that Sony jointly developed the S/PDIF format, as well as the SACD audio system. Subsequently, the consumer still preferred CDs. Other Sony products include disk storage and flash memory.

The modern range of Sony Corporation includes various consumer electronics, including portable audio and video players, computers and so on.

In 2011, Sony, seeking to enter the tablet market, released its Sony series Tablet running Android.


Since 2012, products based on this platform began to enter the market under the Xperia brand (smartphones could also be included in this category).

The company's product range also includes a wide range of digital cameras (including Cyber-shot models), televisions, semiconductors and electronic components (image sensors, laser diodes, OLED panels and so on). The image sensors produced are widely used in digital cameras, tablet computers and Sony smartphones.

The company also has businesses related to medicine, biotechnology and healthcare. In the fall of 2012, Sony announced a joint venture with Olympus to develop new surgical endoscopes. The following year, Sony Olympus Medical Solutions was created.

In 2014, the P5 enterprise was created (together with Illumina and M3) to provide research and development activities.

The company successfully produces portable gaming equipment. By the way, the best-selling video game console of all time is the PlayStation 2. In 2014, new virtual reality technology was announced for the PlayStation 4.

Sony's mobile division is headquartered in the Japanese capital. It was founded in the fall of 2001 as a joint venture with Ericsson. Sony acquired a stake in the Swedish company in the winter of 2012.

In 2013, the flagship Xperia Z3 appeared. The smartphone ran on the Android platform and was equipped with a 5.2-inch display with Full HD resolution. The mobile device had a battery with a capacity of 3100 mAh, as well as a body with high degree protection from moisture and dust.


Back in the early 90s, Ericsson collaborated with General Electric in the USA. They were called Ericsson Mobile Communications. This name was not chosen by chance, and primarily so that the company would be recognizable in the USA. Ericsson supplied the chips for its phones from the Philips plant in New Mexico.

In 2000, a fire occurred at this facility, and production was suspended indefinitely. While we have already established supplies from alternative sources, we are faced with serious problems. For decades this company has been on the market mobile devices and managed to achieve significant success.

As a result, there was a lot of speculation about the possible sale of the mobile division, although the president of Ericsson himself denied this, noting that mobile phones are a core business. At the time, Sony was a minor player in the global device market, with less than 1% share. The final terms of the merger of the two companies were announced in the summer of 2001.

The strategy of the merged company included the release of new models with the function digital photography, as well as other multimedia capabilities. For this purpose, Sony Ericsson specially released several mobile devices with a camera and a color screen.

Despite the success of selling new products, the joint venture continued to suffer losses. The K750i model was introduced in 2005. The device had a 2 megapixel camera.

The W800i model was also a notable device. It was the first Walkman phone capable of playing music for up to 30 hours.


The first 5-megapixel camera phone, the K850i, was released in 2007, followed by an 8-megapixel camera device the following year. At the 2009 exhibition, the company presented the first device with a 12 megapixel camera – Satio.

It is known that in those years they also repeatedly became sponsors of professional sports teams.

In 2011, Sony announced the acquisition of a stake in Swedish partner Ericsson for $1.47 billion. This buyout was approved by the European Union in 2012. Around the same time, the company decided to completely focus on the production of smartphones, excluding the release of all other mobile devices.

To support the gaming sector, Sony is also purchasing the Gaikai cloud service. The Sony logo was replaced with a new power button, and consumers could clearly see these changes after the new Xperia series mobile devices in 2013. In the same year, the Z and ZL models were introduced. This was followed by the flagships Z1 and Z2. The Z3 was also announced in 2014.

Since 2012, all of the company's mobile products have been released under the Xperia line. The following year, a design known as "OmniBalance" appeared. Since 2014, more and more attention has been paid to high-end products, while the budget segment has been almost completely ignored.

The company is also involved in the production of televisions and film products. There is a special division called Sony Pictures Entertainment, as well as a record company, Sony Music Entertainment - the second largest among the Big Four companies, the basis of which was the acquisition of CBS Records, as well as the buyout of Bertelsmann's share.

The subsidiary, which develops and publishes video games, is called Online Entertainment. There is also a label called ATV Music Publishing. Interesting fact: label owns mostly publishing rights of The Beatles.

Looking for something original in the history of the founding of Sony is more useless than writing numbers on flowing water, as the Japanese would put it. Like other successful enterprises, Sony started with a small initial capital ($500 is not a significant amount) and several people united by one idea.

But the history of Sony's development itself deserves close attention.

Now Sony Corporation is a large transnational corporation producing high-tech electronics.

TVs, cameras, video cameras, game consoles, smartphones, e-books- not far full list products that have won the trust of amateurs and professionals.

Sony Corporation is a division of the Sony Group holding company and is also involved in its management. Other subsidiaries of the holding are engaged in film production (Sony Pictures Entertainment owns the film studios TriStars Pictures and Columbia Pictures), are responsible for the music sector (Sony Music Entertainment), the financial sector (Sony Financial Holdings), etc.

  • The corporate headquarters is located in Tokyo.
  • The CEO is Kazuo Hirai, who took over this post in 2012.
  • The total number of employees worldwide is about 170,000 people.
  • Sony Corporation's market capitalization is $17.6 billion, and its sales are more than $78 billion (Forbes data as of May 2013).
  • In 2013, the Sony brand was recognized as one of the most influential at home (4th place in Japan’s Best Global Brands) and throughout the world (5th place in the Top Global Meaningful Brands Index).
  • The Sony brand is consistently popular among our compatriots, appearing in the list of “Russians’ Favorite Brands” either in second (2011) or third (2010, 2012) line.

It's hard to believe, but initially, to avoid drawing attention to the country of origin, Sony printed the words "Made in Japan" in small font on export products. Once, customs even “wrapped” their products because the microscopic inscription was not visible!

The company was “hiding” because cheap Japanese products (paper umbrellas, toys, etc.) gave goods from the Land of the Rising Sun a bad reputation in the West.

However, Sony Corporation managed not only to overcome this stereotype, but also to turn the words “Made in Japan” into a guarantee of high quality!

How did you manage to achieve this?

The company was founded on May 7, 1946 by 38-year-old engineer Masaru Ibuka and 25-year-old physicist, and was then called Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo (Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation).

Masaru and Akio knew each other since the war, when they worked together in a group of scientists who worked for the benefit of the army.

IN new company The founding fathers applied the rule of “divide and conquer.” Being a true technical genius, Ibuka became closely involved in the development of new products, while the enterprising Morita took up solving sales issues.

In his book of memoirs “Made in Japan,” Akio admitted that meeting Masaru turned out to be one of the greatest gifts of fate for him.

At first there were only 20 employees on staff. Could they imagine , that after decades the company’s staff will increase 8000 times?!

Despite the increased number, even now Sony employees perceive each other as one family. In this they adopted the philosophy of Akio Morita, a brilliant manager who knew how to unite and mobilize the team to accomplish assigned tasks.

He understood very well that “no matter how lucky you are... smart or dexterous, your business and its fate are in the hands of the people you hire.” Morita sought to know each employee personally and, to strengthen working relationships, interacted almost daily with young lower-level managers during lunch.

The company structure was also strengthened by the lifelong employment system, revived by the United States at Japanese enterprises in the post-war period. But since Sony has always differed from other Japanese enterprises in its openness to new ideas and flexibility, the company's management took into account the needs of workers, introducing the practice of transferring them from one job to another within the company.

At first, the company was located on the 4th floor of a burnt-out department store in the destroyed center of Tokyo, but soon moved to the old district of the capital. To get into the “new office”, one had to bend down and walk under the clotheslines on which the neighbors were drying diapers.

This shocked Morita's relatives who visited him so much that they reported to his parents that Akio had become an anarchist. However, Morita's father repeatedly lent money to develop the company. " Financial assistance"brought him good dividends - he later became one of the largest shareholders of Sony.

What did the inventors spend the money they received on?

Ibuka and Morita did not immediately find themselves in business. They were eager to create something fundamentally new, but at first they produced either radio set-top boxes, electric rice cookers, or heated pillows.

The search for my own business was crowned with success after 3 years.

In 1949, Morita bought an American tape recorder, combining business with pleasure - both the music could be listened to, and the acquisition could be disassembled and examined.

The information carrier in the tape recorder was unreliable and expensive wire, and Japanese engineers were inspired by the idea of ​​​​creating a tape recorder. The tape media had more high accuracy playback and made it easy to change the recording - it was enough to paste a new piece of tape in the right place.

The idea of ​​a new product was not received with a bang by the company's employees - they had listened to Masaru's fantastic ideas for too long and no longer trusted them much. There was an urgent need to prove to colleagues (and especially to the accountant) that the project was worth the money and effort.

Ibuka and Morita decided to convince the chief accountant that they were right in the usual way for us - they took us to a restaurant. While he was eating both cheeks, his friends were praising their idea. Soon the accountant, with a full stomach and not quite a sober head, gave the go-ahead for scientific research.

The company began developing its own tape media for sound recording. Cellophane was initially used as a base, which was cut into long strips and covered with experimental compounds. But even durable types of cellophane, after a couple of runs through the tape mechanism, stretched and distorted the sound.

The next material for magnetic tape was high-quality paper. It was cut and glued by hand, so the company's founders actually had a hand in creating the product. But paper was no good either.

After the company obtained plastic and developed its own technology for its use, the matter moved forward.

As for the magnetic coating of the tape, Japanese researchers obtained it from iron oxalate, which was pre-fried in a frying pan!

I would like you to clearly understand that at first no one in the company really knew how to make this magnetic tape, but, nevertheless, this did not stop anyone. And already in 1965, IBM chose Sony tape for storage devices in computers.

In 1950, the first tape recorder was released. It weighed 35 kg and cost 170,000 yen, i.e. $472 (a technician after university then received $30 per month).

Everyone liked the technical novelty, but it did not sell - inventing unique technologies and products was not enough. Morita took up marketing and managed to find consumers who saw the tape recorder not as an expensive toy, but as a useful thing. The Supreme Court of Japan immediately purchased 20 tape recorders due to a shortage of stenographers in post-war period. Schools are the next market.

In 1952, after Ibuka’s trip to the USA, the partners got the idea to buy a license for transistor, which would solve the issues of reducing the size of radio receivers. The following year, Morita travels to New York to complete the patent acquisition.

During research in the field of transistors, the company's employees discovered and described the tunneling effect in diodes, Leo Esaki subsequently received the Nobel Prize.

In 1955, Akio decides to change the name of the company - with the unpronounceable “Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo” it is difficult to conquer the Western market.

The business of Japanese engineers was related to sound, and therefore the starting point was the word “sonus” (Latin for “sound”), the meaning was also suitable for the slang “sonny” (English “son”), as smart guys were called then. Crossing out one letter from "sonny" Japanese sounding like “lose money,” Morita got “sony.”

So the corporation acquired a simple and memorable name, which became not only the name of the company, but also the brand of the goods produced.

In 1955 Sony introduces Japan's first transistor radio, the TR-55. Two years later, the company released the first "pocket" receiver, the TR-63, to the US market, dubbed "the beginning of the end of the American radio industry." consumer electronics».

In promoting its product, Sony resorted to a trick - the very first “pocket” receivers were still slightly larger than the pocket of a classic men’s shirt. For company representatives advertising the new product, special shirts with enlarged pockets were issued, into which the receivers could already fit!

In 1960 year Sony introduces the world's first transistor TV. The fact is that at that time televisions were incredibly huge because they worked on electronic vacuum tubes. Transistors were much smaller in size. The Japanese wanted to reduce the size of televisions using transistors, which they did brilliantly.

In 1961 The world's first portable TV appears.

The device caused a real sensation among consumers, even despite its high cost. This allowed

In 1961 year, 15 years after the founding of the business, the company's representative office in the United States, Sony Corporation of America, became the first Japanese company to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The issue of shares brings its founders 4 million dollars! Then the cost of one share was $1.75; now the company’s securities can be purchased for an average of $18 (data from May 2014).

This is not the highest price for Sony shares; the shares reached their highest value in March 2000 and then cost almost $150 per share. Below is a chart of changes in the company's share price. The picture can be enlarged by clicking on it:

In 1963 This year the company introduces a new product - the world's first transistor video cassette recorder.

XVIII Summer Olympic Games 1964, held in Tokyo, contributed to the growth of Japanese demand for color televisions - everyone wanted to follow the progress of the competition (in the final standings, Japan then took 3rd place, behind the USA and the USSR). Sony is successfully developing the market segment of portable TVs, where it does not meet competitors.

What is the secret of the company's success?

Let us note the clear organization of the system - in order to effectively perform tasks, the company structure was divided into groups (scientific knowledge base, project, business group), which had their own functions, but closely interacted with each other.

In addition to such objective factors as new technologies and competent management of the company, the accuracy of the Japanese, which, as Morita believed, was in their blood, also played a role: “ Perhaps this has something to do with the care with which we have to learn to draw the complex hieroglyphs of our language.”

In 1968 In 2009, Sony began production of a color TV with a Trinitron kinescope, for the creation of which the National Academy of Television was awarded 4 years later. will award the company an Emmy Award.

In 1971 Sony introduces the world's first professional cassette format, U-matic. VCRs of this format were the first players in which the film was located in a closed housing. The "" company immediately bought 5,000 of these VCRs to train its mechanics and salespeople.

In 1975 year Betamax appears - f format video recordings for home use; At the same time, the household video cassette recorder appeared.

IN 1979 The company releases the first portable cassette audio player with Walkman headphones. The idea of ​​its creation belongs to , who noticed that there are a great many people who do not want to part with their favorite music - even his daughter, once returning from a trip, the first thing she did was not say hello to her mother, but ran to the tape recorder.

In 1980 year the company introduces Betakam, a half-inch cassette format for home use.

In 1983 Sony and Philips released the first CDs. Initially, discs with a diameter of 11.5 cm were planned, but at Sony's insistence the size was increased to 12 cm - the company wanted the disc to be able to record Beethoven's 9th "chorale" symphony in its entirety, lasting 74 minutes.

The year 1990 became the most fruitful year for innovative developments - Sony released about five thousand new products!

In 1994 In 2009, the company launched the PlayStation gaming console on the Japanese market. This console will conquer a wide market, even entering folklore:

In Russian language lesson:

Teacher: What prefixes do you know?

Vovochka: XboxAndSony PlayStation.

By the way, these game consoles are popular not only among schoolchildren. A funny Sony advert clearly shows how the gaming console turns a grown man into a child.

In the 90s, Cyber-Shot digital cameras, VAIO personal computers, DVD video players, Memory Stick memory cards and much more appeared.

Ibuka Masaru passed away in 1997, and in 1999. Their creative tandem, which lasted more than half a century, led Sony to the heights of success. The lines dedicated to Masaru's farewell say: "Every employee, starting with Akio Morita, worked to make Masaru Ibuki's dream come true." We can say that Masaru’s cherished wish has come true - the life’s work of Japanese businessmen, the Sony company, still lives, develops and wins the trust of more and more new customers.

In 2001, Sony, together with the Swedish company Ericsson, founded a company specializing in mobile phones and accessories. In 2011, having bought out their share from partners, Sony became the sole owner of Sony Ericsson and renamed the company Sony Mobile Communications.

With the new brand name “Xperia”, the company is strengthening its position in the smartphone market.

Since 2005, the company begins to produce televisions under the new brand “BRAVIA”, and already in 2006 it ranks first in the world in sales of plasma televisions.

As for our market, in Russia the history of Sony began in 1991. In 1997, the company owned the highest share of the Russian TV sales market - 22%. In 2013, Sony was awarded the national Product of the Year award, receiving as many as 9 awards.

Is Sony dying?

However, not everything is so rosy. The fact is that over the past five years, not counting 2013, Sony has been unprofitable. That is, she did not make a profit for four years, except for 2013.

The losses are caused by a reduction in Sony's global share in the production of almost all types of electronics. The leading position of the Japanese manufacturer was shaken by companies from Asian countries (South Korea, Taiwan and China), with cheap labor force which were not easy to compete with.

The 2011 earthquake in Japan led to forced plant downtime and additional losses.

The strengthening national currency also played a negative role - the high exchange rate of the yen increased the cost of Japanese goods and made exports less profitable.

Many analysts predict the imminent demise of Sony and advise selling shares of this concern.

To finance its business restructuring program, the company is selling some of its office buildings.

Thus, the sale of a 37-story skyscraper with an area of ​​76 thousand sq.m. in Manhattan brought Sony just over $1 billion in 2013. For 3 years, Sony will still rent the space it previously owned.

To reduce costs, a decision has already been made to cut 5 thousand jobs, as well as to sell the Vaio computer and laptop division. The TV production line is planned to be separated into a separate company.

I don’t know what this is connected with, perhaps due to the fact that the founding fathers passed on to another world. They retired in the mid-nineties, but until their very last days they continued to advise and help their colleagues.

  • Masaru Ibuka was born on April 11, 1908, died on December 19, 1997.
  • born January 26, 1921, died October 3, 1999.

In 2000, Sony's share price reached an all-time high ($149.71) and then began to decline rapidly. They reached a historical low in November 2012, when they cost $9.74 per share.

With the passing of its founders, Sony seemed to have lost its sense of fashionable and unusually interesting gadgets. The company has become completely different. More recently, the company was a true pioneer in the world of electronics and led the market.

Under Morita, new products and innovations were placed at the forefront of the company's development. With the arrival of new managers trained in MBA programs, innovation took a back seat, and the first priority was given to reducing production costs and increasing production volumes and sales of existing products.

Previously, the company's management devoted 85% of its time to issues related to research and development, 10% to personnel issues and only the remaining 5% to finance.

Now, most of the time at management planning meetings is devoted to how to increase production volumes, how to avoid spending on one’s own research and innovation in favor of mass production of other people’s developments, how to extend the depreciation period of equipment and other ways to reduce production costs.

The once most popular Walkmans have been pushed out of the market by iPods, which, by the way, appeared in 2001. But they firmly held the palm in this market for almost 20 years.

The same goes for many other areas in which the legendary Japanese brand has lost its technological edge, although some of Sony's products still deserve praise. For example, it was shot with an inexpensive waterproof camera Sony DSC-TX200, which costs about 10,000 rubles. In my opinion, excellent quality and quite affordable price for underwater camera with HD video recording function.

I have had a Sony car radio in my car for many years now. I've been using it for eight years cell phone Sony-Ericsson, which still works great, except that it is outdated. It just needs to be replaced with a battery, otherwise it runs out quickly. I also still have a Sony digital camera that I bought back in 2006. True, the shooting mode switch is a little sticky, but you can get used to it.

While I was writing the article, I was surprised at how many gadgets I have of this brand, although I never considered myself a fan or a fan of this brand.

By the way, in 2006, Sony Corporation inherited all the technological developments from the leaders in the photographic field, KONICA-MINOLTA, which curtailed the production of cameras in 2006. It is worth noting that Konica and Minolta, which merged only in 2003, were considered the luminaries of Japanese photo production.

Both companies have existed since the beginning of the 19th century. Only Konica specialized in the production of rangefinder cameras, photographic film, paper and photo printing systems, and Minolta specialized in the production SLR cameras and optics, and of a fairly high class and was valued not only by amateurs, but also by professional photographers all over the world.

Today, Sony produces a huge variety of cameras equipped with high-quality optics from Carl Zeiss, the legendary German concern with which the Japanese corporation has been working closely since 1995.

Sony remains to be Sony, just like in the slogan of past years - “it’s a Sony” (“this is Sony”).

Now the company has a new slogan. In 2009, the famous advertising phrase “like.no.other” (“like no one else”) was replaced by a new one: “make.believe” (“make it a reality”). This motto accurately reflects the company's philosophy that dreams should come true and plans should be realized; And Sony helps bring ideas to life.

The logo remains the same; the ’73 trademark is currently used. Back in 1981, as part of the celebration of the 35th anniversary of the founding of Sony, the company's logo was planned to be changed. But then, after going through the options, Ibuka decided that none of the proposed ones was better than the existing one. And why change anything, if it is with these letters, simple and expressive, that Sony has entered its name into the list of innovative companies? Let's hope that the new management of the company will remember past victories and traditions and regain the lost greatness of the brand that once thundered throughout the world!

Since 2008, the company has been a participant in the global Eco-Patent Commons project, created to solve environmental problems. Companies participating in the project provide free access to their patents for technologies and inventions that can improve the environmental situation.

Sony is generally one of the most environmentally friendly companies. In 2013, the company took an honorable 11th place in the “Greenest Brands” rating compiled by the Interband agency based on 83 criteria.

In a number of its eco-products, Sony uses kinetic energy. To recharge a “twist and click” digital camera, you need to rotate its body, while you can “charge” stereo “push and play” headphones by pulling the wire out of the case.

Sony specialists have developed new “biobatteries” that generate electricity by breaking down glucose under the action of enzymes.

By 2050, according to the environmental action schedule, the company plans to achieve zero greenhouse gas emissions for both its factories and its products.

Personally, I like this company and the reliability of the devices it produces. The only wish is that it keeps up with the times and does not lag behind such geniuses and innovators of the industry as Samsung, who are not afraid to open new markets, create new products and trends in the world of consumer electronics.

In conclusion, I suggest you look at the history of Sony’s development in the form of infographics. Click on the picture to enlarge.

Brand: Sony

Slogan: Make it a reality

Industry: Audio and video; financial services

Products: Consumer and professional electronics

Owning company: Sony Corporation

Year founded: 1946

Headquarters: Japan

Sony Corporation, Sony is a multinational corporation headquartered in Japan, founded in 1946. Today Sony Corporation is one of the operating divisions that are part of the Sony Group holding company.

Sony Corporation produces consumer and professional electronics, game consoles and other high-tech products. Besides, Sony is one of the world's largest media companies, owning the Sony Music Entertainment record label, the Columbia Pictures and TriStars Pictures film studios, and the complete archive of MGM films (shared with Comcast).

Company history

Company history Sony begins after the end of World War II, when the young engineer Masaru Ibuka and the talented entrepreneur Akio Morita joined forces to open their own production of radio components. But first things first.

In September 1945, Masaru returns from the battlefield to dilapidated Tokyo, where he decides to open his own workshop for repairing various electrical equipment in the Nihonbashi shopping center. After some time, he and his old friend Akio Morita founded an office in the same premises for a new company, which received the loud name Tokyo Telecommunications Research Institute, which was sometimes shortened to Totsuko. A year later they will move to some semblance of what can already be called the head office.

Their first development was a set-top box for radio receivers, which expanded the capabilities of the device, allowing it to receive foreign programs. These products were not in great demand, but allowed them to stay afloat, amassing some semblance of initial capital. Moreover, sometimes they had to take payment not in money, but in rice, which was a common occurrence for an impoverished country. In a hungry Japan, it was very easy to resell rice, and having developed and implemented a device for cooking rice, he made his first foray into the household appliances market.

These inventions were sold on the black market, and Ibuka's longtime friend, Shozaburo Tachikawa, helped them in selling the goods. Selling the device was not particularly difficult, and Tachikawa did his job easily.

Post-war Japan is a place where it was very difficult to start any kind of business, and it all consisted of a shortage of both material resources and intellectual potential. Shackled by these conditions, Ibuka, Tachikawa and the company’s few employees worked for days, tirelessly.

The company's existence depended largely on sales of heating pads, even though they were sold under the false name "Ginza Nessuru Shokai" (Ginza Heating Company). But this could not continue for long; there was a certain problem with the quality of the pillows produced, namely the danger of fire. There were incidents, but no complaints were received, only from the attitude of customers towards the ease of use of the pillows. But such “playing with fire” could easily destroy the reputation of a young company.

After some persuasion, promising physicist Kazuo Iwama, who had previously married his sister Morita, joins the ranks of the company.

At the same time, NHK (National Broadcasting Station) provided an order for the reconstruction of military equipment to restore radio broadcasting in Japan. The project was led by Ibuka's friend Shigeo Shima. The order had national importance, so Shigeo gained access to military developments that later fell into the hands of Ibuka.

Although business with NHK was going well, the owner of the factory occupied by the company asked to vacate the premises. The point was that in order to stay afloat the company needed to work for days, consuming a lot of electricity, and such energy consumption could easily cause a power outage in the entire building. I had to submit and again start looking for a place where I could continue my endeavors in serial and assembly line production.

After a difficult few months of searching, the premises were found, located in the NEC Corporation warehouse, which was located in Shinagawa.

Soon the company had the opportunity to work with the occupying forces. Cooperation with the troops allowed the Totsuko company to obtain a recording device. He used metal tape in his design and, after a little modification by new employee Nobutoshi Kihara, was able to record news blocks.

The prospect of visits from the occupying forces was obvious and therefore Morita and Ibuka visited them more and more often at NHK. The next time they were shown a tape recorder. This was something, Ibuka immediately became eager to do the same. After convincing the officer to show the tape recorder to his designers from the company, Ibuta and Morita went to Tachikawa and asked him for about 300 thousand yen, a huge amount of money at that time, but Ibuka was confident that the device would pay for itself. After some persuasion and a demonstration of the American device to Tachikawa’s partner, Ibuka achieved the desired amount.

The tape recorder was invented by German scientists back in 1936; a decade later, such a device remained rare even in the United States. The next few months were busy producing magnetic powder using an ordinary grill.

By spraying such powder onto a special surface, Ibuka and Morita achieved the desired result, but this was not the limit of perfection. Although their film could record and play back sound, due to lack of knowledge of the correct spraying technology, the consumption of powder was very high. And then Ibuka decided to contact the Yama-no-ue plant, where this technology had already been mastered.

Ibuka learned there that a comb made from badger hair was the way to go, perfect for spraying. After buying a comb and some experimentation, everything worked out, the result met all expectations. Further, through experiments, it became obvious that the thickness of the powder is directly proportional to the sound quality, i.e. The thinner the layer, the better the quality.

The first tape recorder prototype

Development of the prototype continued for several months until the 1st tape recorder appeared in September 1949. In February 1950, A and G prototypes appeared, which could record and play back a film with a total duration of no more than 30 minutes.

The G-prototype was registered to the company "Tapecorder". And the film production process was called "Soni-Tape". After several articles about such a miracle device, the increase in interest in the Totsuko company did not surprise anyone. Masao Kurahashi, one of the Yagumo Sangyo employees, was especially interested. By this time, Totsuko's capital had grown from 3.8 million to 10 million yen.

Masao decided to invest 500 thousand yen and buy back 10 thousand shares at 50 yen each. But first, he needed to look at Totsuko with his own eyes. After a visual demonstration, Kurahashi offered to sell him all the rights to the tape recorder. But Ibuka refused. Instead, he responded with an offer to buy 50 tape recorders with a total value of 6 million yen. Masao wrote a check. Soon he resold them at a higher price, i.e. making a profit of 1 million yen on top.

Kurahashi's success impressed Morita so much that he invited Masao to join his company and head the sales department at Totsuko. The persistence of Morita and Ibuka did their job, and Kurahashi became a member of the team.

In early 1951, Masao Kurahashi became the manager of the Tokyo Recording Company, a subsidiary of Totsuko. Also invited to the company was the scientist Takeo Tsuchihashi, whose task was to bring the tape recorder to perfection.

The sound recording device constantly spoiled the magnetic tape and broke down, but even if everything worked fine, the tape recorder was very difficult to operate, both for those who had not previously used devices of this kind at all, and for those who were at least somehow enlightened . The very next day, Kihara, along with the rest of the engineers, began creating two new prototypes, which were supposed to be smaller in size and weigh 20 kg. Developed in 1951, the H-tape recorder already weighed only 13 kg.

As part of the promotional campaign, Kurahashi went on a tour of Japan, while Morita set out to convince the Ministry of Education to use tape recorders in schools. Soon a P-tape recorder appeared at a price of 75 thousand yen, it broke all sales records. And not only because of the price, but also because of the service that came with the supplied products. If the tape recorder breaks down while using it,... Totsuko performed all repair work absolutely free of charge. Thus, Totsuko turned disadvantages into advantages.

Serial production

When the product went into mass production, Totsuko had trouble meeting consumer demand. Therefore, they decided to buy out a small plant, and conveyor production was established.

By this time, Totsuko's sales network consisted of 3 companies, including Tokyo Recording Company. Soon Nippon Gakki (or Japan Instruments) joined these companies; working with them was very profitable, because Nippon Gakki already had established supplies to musical educational institutions. But even such a network and good sales in Japan could not make Totsuko a company with a sufficiently large income.

It was then that Morita came to the conclusion that the time had come to export the product outside the country. This would not only expand the circle of consumers, but also increase the company's chances of survival in the event of any economic crisis. In addition, Totsuko had a patent on tape recording, which could help monopolize the market.

When Kazuo Iwama and Ibuka read an article in a Western popular science magazine about the development of a transistor at Bell Laboratories, they seriously doubted the capabilities of this device. In March 1952, Masaru Ibuka went to the United States in order to study the use of transistors, and at the same time to look at how the process of their creation by an American company occurs.

A few days later he was in New York, where he met with the head of the Nissho company, Masaichi Nishikawa and his companion Yamada. He also received an offer from Western Electric to use the transistor patent for a small fee of $25 thousand (9 million yen). But on this trip he failed to obtain a patent.

He returned to Japan with a vinyl tablecloth and germanium diodes, which were new to the local market. But Masaru returned with the confidence that transistors are the future. After consulting with Akio Morita, Ibuka asked his managing director, Koichi Kasahara, for advice. After thinking all night, Koichi decided that transistors were exactly what they should do. Ibuka applied for a license to MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry), but was refused, arguing that his factory was too small for such production.

At this time, having become friends with Ibuka in New York, Yamada negotiated with Western Electric to grant a patent to the Totsuko company. He soon achieved success and in August 1953, Morita arrived in the United States, where he signed a contract with Western Electric. The next thing Morita decided to do was to start producing transistor radios.

Despite the opinions of others about the capabilities of such a small company as Totsuko, Ibuka was confident that everything was still ahead. A team of the company's best specialists studied a book on transistors that Morita brought from the USA.

In January 1954, Iwama headed to the United States to learn more about transistors, where he visited the Western Electric plant. The knowledge gained should have been enough for Totsuko to develop his own prototype. Iwama recorded all the information he received and sent it to Totsuko engineers.

A week before his return, the first transistor in Japan was ready. Now to continue the company it was necessary to obtain a loan and set up production. Next, Ibuka invites into his company a famous scientist, Professor Takasaki, who by this time already had several patents.

As problems emerged and were solved, the plant was re-equipped until it was finally ready for the production of transistors. By the end of October, the first transistors and devices based on them appeared on the market. 2T14 transistors cost about 4 thousand yen, and 1T23 diodes about 320 yen. Despite the decent price, they sold simply excellent.

Morita was preparing for his 2nd business trip to the USA, where he wanted to conclude agreements and show a working sample of his receiver. But this was not the only purpose of the trip. In order to sell its products in America, the company needed a different name - Americans could not pronounce not only Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo, but even Totsuko. And selling a product from a company whose name was difficult to pronounce did not make sense.

Morita and Ibuka decided to change the current name to one that was easy to pronounce and remember. The choice fell on the Latin word “sonus”, a derivative of the words “speed” and “sound”. According to another version, the name of the company comes from the English. sunny boys ("sunny boys"; in the English version, sonny-boys acquired the meaning of "young geniuses" in Japanese; in addition, Morita tried to find a word that does not exist in any language in the world. Since in Japanese the sounds of "sonny" resemble the word, denoting an unsuccessful business, it was decided to remove one of the letters n.

The Totsuko company now had an excellent international name. Morita wanted to sell products exclusively under his own name, so if the terms of the order he received included using the name of another company, then such orders were refused to be fulfilled.

April 1955. At this time, an unforeseen event occurred - the housing of the receivers, made of thin plastic, simply became deformed due to the hot weather in America. We had to modify the product, with the needs already oriented. The TR-55, completed in August, was just such a radio, i.e. the company has shown that it can adapt its production.

Soon, Totsuko decided to gather all of its competitors from Sanyo, Toshiba Corporation, Ltd, Victor Company of Japan, Hayakawa Electric Corporation, Matsushita and Standard Co., Ltd and show them its transistors. The technology was truly excellent, and competitors agreed to purchase transistors from Totsuko.

By 1956, the company's financial turnover reached 100 million yen. Thus, the TR-63 portable receiver was released in March 1957, but such a device sold poorly due to its high price.

Next, the company decided that it was necessary to increase brand awareness through advertising. For these purposes, the company purchased a neon sign Sony, huge size. It was installed in Sukiyaabashi. The cost of this design was about 20 million yen. On New Year's Day, this sign was shown on TV screens. So the company brand Sony began to find out. And already in January 1958, Totsuko officially became a Sony corporation.

Golden period of the corporation

The reported theft of 4,000 receivers allowed Sony to make international headlines, indicating that Sony has become a prominent company. Only recently, the brand that declared itself began to be instantly recognized. The company's subsidiaries were opened outside Japan.

In two years from 1958-1960, more than 500 thousand copies of a compact transistor radio were sold, but this was not enough. Sony how a company implementing promising ideas looked in a new direction - television. They did so, and already in 1961 the TV8-301 was developed - the first compact TV. In 1968, the first Trinitron color television.

Already in 1971, the world saw the first color video cassette (tektonik video), just 4 years later Sony demonstrates the world's first video recorder - Betamax VCR. And 1979 is remembered as the year when the famous Walkman appeared. This player turned out to be a real explosion, selling 100 million copies worldwide, becoming the Japanese company's best-selling device.

In 1981, the world saw the first electronic camera, in 1982 the first CD player, in 1983 Sony, together with Philips, launched the first CDs on the market, in 1985 the first digital VTR and, the crown of it all, in 1989 the order specially from IBM for Sony- 3.5 inch drive, the same one that for a long time used before the development of a more compact 1.4-inch version.

1995 was marked by the release Sony to the new market for game consoles with the PlayStation system. On its first weekend in the US, 100 thousand PlayStations were sold at a price of $299.

The release of the Sony PlayStation 2 in March 1999 in Japan, and only on October 26, 2000 in America, only strengthened Sony's position in the entertainment market. In the first years of sales, many people bought the PlayStation 2 as a cheap DVD player - everyone saw the difference between $300 and $1000+.

In 2004, a lightweight version of the PlayStation 2 appeared - Slim. By mid-2007, according to rough estimates, more than 120 million copies of the PS2 model and 1.3 billion games for it had been sold. Despite the release of the PS3, the development of new titles for the PlayStation 2 does not stop to this day.

On September 21, 2007, a new PlayStation Portable model was introduced. While retaining all the main functions of the model, the new PSP-2000 received an incredibly large LCD screen with a diagonal of 4.3 inches and a widescreen aspect ratio for a portable device. The model has become thinner by 19% and lighter by 33%.

In August 2011, the company announced the creation of a joint venture with Toshiba, Hitachi and the Japanese public-private company Innovation Network Corporation of Japan to produce computer screens for portable equipment. The revenue of the joint venture (INGJ will receive 70% of it), which will be created in 2012, is expected to become the largest player in this market with annual revenue of $6.6 billion

Date of birth: 06/06/1995
Place of birth: St. Petersburg
Youtube channel:

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Sonya Yesman was born in the glorious city of St. Petersburg on June 6, 1995. In her videos on YouTube, Sonya rarely talks about her parents and family.


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YouTube channel of Sonya Esman

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