The President's Letter

Emotion and Innovation in the Broadband Era

SONY is implementing its new vision for a ubiquitous "value" network to generate a new wave of growth in the broadband era

We were fortunate to have Kunitake Ando, president and chief operating officer of Sony Corporation, address the press at the recent National Association of Broadcasters convention and wanted to share his vision with Network’s readers.

Ever since Sony was founded more than 50 years ago, we have brought innovation into people’s lives through audio/video hardware. Sony has always worked tirelessly to enhance the power of expression through sound and the beauty of pictures through video.

The values that Sony always tries to deliver are emotion and innovation. Emotion through the reality of pictures by Trinitron® televisions, emotion through the experience of listening to music through Walkman® headphones, emotion through the first experience of CD sound. And innovation through the amazing gaming experience of the PlayStation2® systems, innovation through Electronic News Gathering, and innovation through digital production.

Throughout our history, we have learned that human emotions don’t come from hardware alone. They only come from a total experience of great hardware and great content. That’s why Sony entered the entertainment business through the acquisition of CBS Records in 1987 and Columbia Pictures in 1989. Also, Sony has been supporting content creation with epoch-making production systems from U-matic® equipment all the way up to the HDCAM® format. Sony has long offered end-to-end solutions that help content creators share their emotions with their audiences.

The expansion of the broadband environment is accelerating, especially in places like Korea, Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Sony plans to lead the exploration of this broadband frontier, paving the way for our customers to take full advantage of its vast potential.

In order to generate a new wave of growth in the broadband era, Sony is implementing its new vision for a Ubiquitous “Value”Network. We are working harder than ever to develop a new environment for creating emotional value. It’s an environment where people can realize value from attractive content on any device, anywhere, at any time, all on an open network.

Sony is committed to introducing a full range of networked AV/IT devices—all of them seamlessly connected, creating a whole new platform. This is what we mean at Sony when we talk about the power of hardware. The power of hardware will provide our customers with comprehensive AV/IT solutions that will help fuel people’s emotions.

As part of our vision of a Ubiquitous “Value” Network, we have proposed the Anycast™ concept. It is key to content creation in the broadband era.

This year, Sony is focused on providing workflow innovation. Our innovations will help content creators achieve greater efficiency. And they will be able to share media-rich assets across many properties. This is an absolute requirement in the broadband era.

However, this is just a part of the story. The real challenge for content creators—and for Sony—is to keep producing rich content that appeals to people’s emotions. And, of course, Sony is in a unique position to understand this point. We make the production equipment to create the content. We make the consumer devices so we can enjoy the content. And for that matter, we make the content!

Content creators are going through a revolution. The creative community has always been impacted by new technology. In the broadband era, content creators will continue to need the latest technology to keep generating the emotional value of their content. Sony will contribute to the creative community by both supporting and developing powerful hardware platforms.

In the broadband era, Sony will work closely with our customers to realize new value creation, new services, and whole new industries. Together we can generate and ride a tidal wave of growth. Along with the content creators, Sony is also facing a huge opportunity in this revolution. In fact, we all are. So let’s realize the rich Ubiquitous “Value” Network together.