back to article Sony chairman Howard Stringer set to retire, explore 'new world'

Sony chair and former CEO Howard Stringer is set to retire from the firm completely this June. The Welsh-born businessman already left his CEO seat last year after seven years on the job and will now leave the board entirely. Stringer spent 15 years at Sony after a three-decades-long stint at US broadcaster CBS and rose to …

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  1. Rampant Spaniel

    Let's hope this is another step towards Sony exploring some profits.

    1. GrumpyOldBloke

      Let's hope this is another step towards Sony exploring the concept of the customer and perhaps discovering that the only vested interests that count are the ones bearing coin.

  2. Wrong ended schtick

    Inevitability's a bitch

    When the road runs out, which way so you go? Into the wilderness or onto obscurity? If you can no longer blaze a trail for any reason, liquidation is the only homourable option, as it gives everyone something for their time and/or investment. If you don't you are surely captaining a truly pirate management crew- and are effectively abandoning all the years of loot and toil to the boldest enterprise/s anyhow.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Fixed it for ya.

      litigation is the only honourable option.

      Seems to be Apple's solution at their end of the road...

      Sony are just fine however, they have some amazing tech and innovations that are ahead their peers, the Xperia Z for example, the best phone out there right now, waterproof too.. The PS3 totally obliterates all other gaming and media systems, tech released in 2007 that's still bang upto date in 2013 - unheard of.

      Problems is, too many cheapskates and kids fooled into hating Sony because of Microsoft's guerilla viral marketing campaigns.

      1. ItsNotMe
        Happy

        "Sony are just fine however, they have some amazing tech and innovations..."

        Let me tell you a little story about Sir Howard, & his early days at Sony.

        I have a friend who was one of Sir Howard's two personal assistants, going back to his days at CBS, Inc. She was with him for many years, and she & I both were Flight Pursers at a now defunct airline. We worked together for the better part of 20 years. She moved on to CBS with Howard (before he was Knighted), and I moved on to the IT world.

        I received a call from her one day, a year or so after she (and Howard) had moved to Sony, inquiring about my thoughts on what brand of laptop computer she should buy for her "significant other".

        I was a bit confused, and asked her why wasn't she considering a Sony laptop? Her reply..."No one here at Sony uses Sony computers. They are not very good...and the support is non-existent." Man did I have a laugh!

        She ended up purchasing an IBM (pre-Lenovo) ThinkPad for him.

        True story.

        1. ItsNotMe
          FAIL

          Re: "Sony are just fine however, they have some amazing tech and innovations..."

          So who are the two mouth-breathing, knuckle dragging, Neanderthals who down voted my comment? And for what reason(s)? Time to back under your bridge.

  3. Daniel B.
    Boffin

    Hm, that explains it...

    This guy seems to have been in the helm during the whole time that Sony started turning anti-consumer, and he's the first gaijin CEO.

    Maybe the problem is precisely that? Japanese culture is usually better at the whole consumer's rights than the typical US company. Maybe having CEOship return to Japan might get Sony back on track, and off the stupid root kit/ban OtherOS path. Hopefully.

  4. Gene Cash Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    It's not just "stupid root kit/ban OtherOS"

    Sure, that was a major issue, but for me it was just the final straw.

    Sony is basically as proprietary as they can be. Their cameras accept only their proprietary memory stick crap, instead of standard compact flash & SD cards.

    Except for the top-end units, their minidisk players would only accept ATRAC files, and wouldn't play any other format.

    Their Vaio computers had various details fiddled with ever so slightly that only their own Windows drivers would work. Try to install Linux and it's hell getting sound and other things to work right.

    I'll never buy another Sony product ever again. Most of this was long before Stringer.

    1. Tony Proudlove
      WTF?

      Re: It's not just "stupid root kit/ban OtherOS"

      My Sony Cybershot takes an SD card. My PS3 happily takes any old USB storage and I've just replaced the HDD with a 1TB Seagate - nothing proprietary about that. My Xperia Play takes an SD card (it is a piece of junk though). I think your argument is a little dated. Minidisk? Next you'll be complaining they removed Linux support from their 8-track players.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It's not just "stupid root kit/ban OtherOS"

      "Sony is basically as proprietary as they can be."

      Yup - they invented non-interoperability before Apple did. Maybe some should sue someone...

      As for the rootkit debacle, I followed that closely and concluded that they were dishonest weasels.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It's not just "stupid root kit/ban OtherOS"

      Utter rubbish.

      My Sony camera takes SD cards just fine.

      The Vita doesn't for a very valid reason, SD Cards don't support the hardware encryption to stop you simply copying cards.. So what were they supposed to do?

      Minidisks only played, em Minidisks... (ATRAC is a format, actually a very good format). If you mean MP3 players that supported ATRAC, well they supported MP3 and AAC too, so that's a fail there too.

      Vaios are no different to any OEM, they all add their own stuff, they all fiddle. My Vaio (an ageing AR51) runs Linux Mint just fine, Wifi and all.

      You do know everything you read on the internet isn't true right?? It seems like you believe it is....

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