PAMUDURTHI: About Sony Corporation

Sony Corporation commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Kōnan, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. It is the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues. Sony is one of the leading manufacturers of electronics products for the consumer and professional markets. Sony Corporation is the electronics business unit and the parent company of the Sony Group, which is engaged in business through its six operating segments – Consumer Products & Services Group (consumer electronics, game & network services), Professional, Device & Solutions Group (B2B products & services), Pictures, Music, Financial Services and Sony Ericsson. These make Sony one of the most comprehensive entertainment companies in the world. Sony's principal business operations include Sony Corporation (Sony Electronics in the U.S.), Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment, Sony Music Entertainment, Sony Ericsson, and Sony Financial. As a semiconductor maker, Sony is among the Worldwide Top 20 Semiconductor Sales Leaders.

In late 1945, after the end of World War II, Masaru Ibuka started a radio repair shop in a bomb-damaged department store Shirokiya building in Nihonbashi of Tokyo. The next year, he was joined by his colleague, Akio Morita, and they founded a company called Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo K.K.(Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation). The company built Japan's first tape recorder, called the Type-G. In the early 1950s, Ibuka traveled in the United States and heard about Bell Labs' invention of the transistor. He convinced Bell to license the transistor technology to his Japanese company. While most American companies were researching the transistor for its military applications, Ibuka and Morita looked to apply it to communications. Although the American companies Regency Electronics and Texas Instruments built the first transistor radio as joint venture, it was Ibuka's company that made them commercially successful for the first time. In August 1955, Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo released the Sony TR-55, Japan's first commercially produced transistor radio.

The name "Sony" was chosen for the brand as a mix of two words. One was the Latin word "Sonus", which is the root of sonic and sound, and the other was "Sonny", a familiar term used in 1950s America to call a boy. Its founders Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka derived the name from sonus.

In late 1994 Sony launched the PlayStation to compete with other consoles. This successful console was succeeded by the PlayStation 2 in 2000. The PlayStation 2 has become the most successful video game console of all time, selling over 150 million units as of 2011.Sony offers a line up laptops branded as VAIO. Previously Sony has disabled hardware virtualization on their high end VAIO laptops, citing concern for users running malicious code.However, most new VAIO laptops can utilize virtualization.

On 22 June 2005, Nobuyuki Idei stepped down as Sony Corp. Chairman and Group CEO and was replaced by Howard Stringer, then Chairman and CEO of Sony Corporation of America, Corporate Executive Officer, Vice Chairman and COO Sony Entertainment Business Group. Sony's decision to replace Idei with the British Howard Stringer marked the first time that a foreigner has run a major Japanese electronics firm. On the same date, Kunitake Ando stepped down as President and was replaced by Ryoji Chubachi. Sony's former slogans were "It's a Sony", "like.no.other" and its current slogan is "make.believe".

In May 2011, Sony expected to lose a total of 260 billion yen ($3.2 billion) for the year, due to the effects of the Japanese earthquake. The forecast of a $3.2 billion loss was quite different than its earlier projection of a profit of 70 billion yen ($857 million) for the year. In November 2011, Sony was ranked 9th (jointly with Panasonic) in Greenpeace’s re-launched Guide to Greener Electronics that assesses the policies and practices to reduce climate impact, produce greener products, and make operations more sustainable of 18 leading electronics manufacturers.

Since 1976, Sony has had an Environmental Conference. Sony's policies address their effects on global warming, the environment, and resources. They are taking steps to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases that they put out as well as regulating the products they get from their suppliers in a process that they call "green procurement". Sony has said that they have signed on to have about 75 percent of their Sony Building running on geothermal power. The company has also developed a biobattery that runs on sugars and carbohydrates that works similarly to the way living creatures work. This is the most powerful small biobattery to date.

On December 9, 2008, Sony Corporation announced that it would be cutting 8,000 jobs, dropping 8,000 contractors and reducing its global manufacturing sites by 10% to save $1.1 billion a year.

On 29 May 2011, a group called Lulz Security announced a campaign against Sony, using language emblematic of the Anonymous movement. On 2 June 2011, Sony Pictures Entertainment was the subject of an attack, disclosing 1 million user passwords, which were then distributed via BitTorrent.