valleylist Monday 6.9.2008 v 23.0
high tech products companies consumers
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HIGH TECH PRODUCTS
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+ quickly USA high tech food
- – Asian Fusion Style Chain Cafe
+ 01SJ - – art and technology second bi-ennial
+ pelosi talks innovation in silicon valley
+ yahoo web hosting plans – $8.96/mo
+ carl icahn wants to make jerry yang resign NO WAY!
- – carl icahn lays out 5-point game plan for Yahoo
SONY STYLE stores and the top 5 sony products of the 20th century. It came from Tokyo. That’s where sony invented literally some of the basic technology that we all take for granted. Not quite as important as who invented electricity for example. Yet life without sony is a difficult concept.
The top 5 sony products of all time are – -
1. sony walkman
3. sony trinitron color television
4. sony cd and optical publishing - – sony music
5. sony digital video and movies
The difficulty with SONY and companies that big is that they actually create and market new products that really do become an indespensible part of people’s lives. They complete their business with the actual delivery of real value to “stock holders” in the form increases in the value of the stock on the stock market as well as dividends. Sony Global [Corporate Information] is the world leader in a large number of consumer electronics lines of business and even they cannot complete a business year without demonstrating value to their employees customers stock holders and regulatory agencies each and every day. Needless to say SONY is relentlessly pro-business.
MAYOR OF THE WEEK – - I heard Chuck Reed speak this week at the 01SJ right out there in front of san jose city hall when he introduced Craig Walsh’s “Tenticles” a not-to-be-missed projected light art work of tenticles filling up the city hall rotunda from the inside out. To continue the confusion over whether or not san jose will ever awaken from it’s slumber the official description of 01SJ is “the second year of the biennial art and technology event” . The confusion continues – - Palo Alto Mayor Larry Klein wants credit of getting HP to contribute money to end world hunger – - $250,000 to World Food Programme – - and it’s finally something other than the endless “all electric power” bandwagon.
HAL LOGAN joined the new business development group at the phone company just when everybody was getting new furniture. It was just after I had my first meetings with SONY and various hardware and software companies including the infamous Gary Kildal “Knowledgeset” group. David P. Flores [DPF] had left the group to pursue “montey python and the holy grail” all the way to San Mateo.
DPF and his legacy of meetings with everybody from IBM to Volt to Apple to Hitachi to SONY left many people confused and eager for a real product – - music, videos, films, games, newspapers – - all on CDs. Perposterous. That was my first introduction to SONY and an afternoon with Michael [Mickey] Schulhoff the director of USA operations for SONY which made DPF feel very small. After all he was just the director of business development at Pacific Bell yellow pages. Aside from lunch what’s the point? Is PBD or DPF ready to invest say $14m in new optical publishing products and services from SONY? The meeting was scheduled a week in advance and everybody arrived prepared to do the stand up presentation and make a deal.
All the anti-people – - those dedicated to ruining any kind of deal at all – - were restricted to their cubicles. Just a few days later a deal – - totally different from the $14m deal – - was agreed to. A few weeks later I completed my newest “first ever” product. It was an infamous first ever CD-ROM yellow pages with search and retrieval software provided by “knowledgeset” . Our PBD board was stunned by the demo and approved the development of the product immediately. My enduring contribution was to offer them each a souveneir “CD-ROM” encased in lucite to commerate the company’s headway into the electronic publishing business.
I was promoted immediately. Then it was hire new people for the next big infrastructure project leading up to a real new interactive yellow pages market trial.
Oddly enough I got into trouble with a few competitors and eventually had to stare down a small time operator named “yellowphone” in court over difficulties associated with including everybody in a new product market trial. I helped the phone company win the yellow phone legal case. In the meantime DPF walked away but not that far and Hal Logan picked up the business development action and always wanted to meet Mr. Michael [Mickey] Schulhoff, who later became SONY’s ceo at their headquarters in Japan. Perhaps one of the most influential business people of the 20th century, Schulhoff lead SONY through the introduction of SONY Pictures, SONY Computers, the videogame consol business, and the development of many versions of betamax and/or vhs and of course successful CD music film and video game products. SONY’s movies and video and audio and hardware products of the 1980′s were among the most successful of the decade.
However I never did find a way to get Hal Logan – - a black business man with background at Dow Jones and a Princton graduate – - together with SONY or Mr. Shulhoff. Instead the entire conversation came to a crashing end on a dreary Friday when I mispoke and almost ended my career when Hal Logan asked why no calls from SONY I mistakenly replied “hey listen, there’s nothing going on - – the jig is up!”
IF SONY HAD NOT INVENTED THE WALKMAN then sony might just be another start up. With the walkman they really hit the big time real big! According to the History of Sony it’s a 1945 SONY is a start up built around a few transistors and of all things the radio and radio transmission signal strength and a big idea about capturing the mass market. The people made the company, Masaru Ibuka and Tokodai Morita called their first company “Tokyo Telecommunications Institute” and mass marketed their first product – - patented and trademarked transistors to be used in new audio and video products like television radio video recording and broadcasting – - to great acclaim.
THERE’S NOT ENOUGH SONY STYLE STORES AROUND when you need them. Try almost any consumer electronics store and SONY is most likely the leading brand. How did that happen? Their big theme is innovation. However they do it all through very sophisticated marketing programs that add value at each level of the value chain.
There are two sony style stores in silicon valley.
Palo Alto Stanford Shopping Center - – sony style has the video cameras and computers and flat screen televisions and mp3 players and at least more sony going on than anybody could handle in an afternoon. This store is where they featured the “youtube” deal with sony which allows people to put “youtube” right on their ordinary television with a special cable connection available at the sony style stores. I also came across a odd story – - a sony senior executive is visiting 40 sony style stores in 40 days as part of a publicity stunt to get people more interested in sony style stores.
Santa Clara Valley Fair - – sony style only not as complete as the Palo Alto Shopping Center store however their claim to fame is a complete sampling of all sony products on the market.
SONY STYLE STORE LOCATIONS IN SILICON VALLEY should inlcude S.F. Each sony style store has computers – - cameras and camcorders – - television and home entertainment – - mp3 and portable entertainment – - movies and video – - and games.
If you’re feeling ambitous try the San Francisco Metreon – - sony style and playstation – - probrably the most exciting place to try out all kinds of sony products and they have a complete sony style consumer electronics store as well as a complete sony playstation store. Hot video games this week at sony playstation metreon – -
1. god of war
4. the king of the fighters xi
5. indiana jones the original adventure
On display also the most interesting thing – - a real sony “walkman”. Now it’s just an mp3 player and it’s as uninteresting as most mp3 players these days. Other odd products also on display at the sony style store at the metreon are the sony smart phones the sony “robot” . The playstation has 27 sony portable psp’s on display.
The sony psp portable playstation remains my favorite new sony product of the 21st century. It’s a great access device as well as the best looking handheld game console around. It’s also connectable to the new sony flatscreen television for multi-player games.
Sony Ericson Sony Hardware and Phones Sony Vegas Sony Vegas Seattle Users Network sony network Sony Employees Sony Pictures Entertainment FreeRealms – Sony Online Entertainment Sony Space Sony PSP sony Sony Wonder Lab Field Trip SONY HANDYCAM Sony Ericsson Wall E Laptop batteries
