Stringer Rejects Criticism that Sony Was Late to Market on 3D TV

LAS VEGAS -- Though Sony last summer shipped its first 3D TVs about 90 days after rivals Panasonic and Samsung introduced their first sets, Sony CEO Howard Stringer told reporters at a CES briefing Thursday that he rejects criticism that his company came to market too late with the product. He defended Sony’s 3D consumer lineup as “better than anything else that’s out there.” Sony’s 3D product offerings are “quite remarkable,” he said.

Sony “talked a lot” internally about being first to market with 3D TVs, Stringer said. “We were very conscious, because we spent a lot of our time developing 3D relationships, which would ultimately pay off, because you can’t get customers to buy 3D” without content, he said. “There’s nothing yet to watch on 3D television,” Stringer said. “But there will be. We did that deal with Discovery very quickly. We were the first to do a deal with ESPN, because we recognized that we had to generate content to make 3D a rich experience. We've done that, and this year, we'll see further development. You know, being first is good in some things, but not so good in others."

Sony’s Bravia LCD models took the top market share in 3D TV during the holiday selling season, “particularly in the runup to Christmas,” said new Sony Electronics President Phil Molyneux. “We've done some good work there. It’s encouraging that the market is widening. Consumer acceptance of 3D TV is really moving up. Again, we're making progress."

Stringer, who two years ago scolded Sony for its inefficiency and for often being late to market with new products (CED Jan 22/08 p1), thinks the company has since made big inroads in streamlining itself, he said. At Sony’s pre-CES news conference Wednesday, he called Sony a much “stronger, smarter, leaner” company than it was a year or two ago (CED Jan 6 p1). But bringing products to market faster is “always a work in progress for a big company,” he told us Thursday. “Size is an advantage, but size is also always a disadvantage because you have bureaucracies. It’s the same with Microsoft and other big companies."

Stringer said he keeps “impressing upon people that we will not be first in everything because we have so many different divisions of products.” Still, “we need to always communicate being first,” as Sony was with Google TV, he said. “It’s a very happy place, Japan. It’s not as competitive as it used to be because it’s too happy. If you're not careful, happiness becomes complacency. I don’t think we have that at Sony anymore, but you cannot stop impressing upon people that you love your job, you love working here, but you have to produce something. I think we've changed the psychology quite dramatically in the last couple of years, but we won’t stop."

Sony has had “solid sales” of Google TV since it was introduced in October, Stringer said. But Sony “still has got a lot of work to do to explain” Google TV to consumers, he said. “The public is slow” to adopt new platforms and products like Google TV, because “it’s another big purchase,” Stringer said. But “people need to be patient,” because Google TV will thrive over time just as HDTV did despite early skepticism. He recalled being asked repeatedly several years ago why Sony didn’t support HD DVD as a less expensive alternative to Blu-ray. That Blu-ray today “has become a micro triumph” vindicates Sony’s position and proves why HD DVD supporter Microsoft “has been left behind” on 3D and other technologies, Stringer said. Molyneux said Sony is “fairly happy with where we are at this time” with Google TV. It represents a “new domain” that Sony is creating for the consumer, he said.

Other issues: (1) Molyneux said he wants to revamp Sony Style stores because he thinks they're too “cluttered in terms of many, many SKUs from Sony.” Sony Style stores need to be a “wonderland for the consumer,” and Sony will try to “generate that capability for consumers who walk in our stores,” he said. (2) Sony will put a tablet PC on the market when it can introduce one that’s “competitive and differentiated,” Stringer said. Other executives said Sony concedes that the iPad is “the king of tablets,” but there'll be open competition to decide the number two supplier. Sony’s goal is to win that position by 2012 through products designed and marketed with Sony Ericsson, they said. (3) The 24.5-inch glasses-free OLED 3D TV that Sony is showing as a prototype at CES will be introduced to the B2B market this year because “the quality is super,” said Hiroshi Yoshioka, president of Sony’s Consumer, Professional and Devices Group. There’s “still some discussion” within Sony about whether the product ultimately will be introduced into the consumer market, he said.