Just after earning his master’s degree in communications from Clarion University in 1980, Jay Dellostretto took a Dale Carnegie sales training course during which he was asked, “Where do you want to be two years from now?”

Without a doubt, he answered, “Working for Sony as a sales manager.” That ambition and drive landed Dellostretto his dream job at Sony in 1983, and his business acumen and salesmanship earned him a membership in Sony’s coveted Samurai Society, an honorary society for exceptional salespersons, in 1994. Today, he is vice president of sales and marketing for the Display Systems Division of Sony’s Business Solutions and Systems Company, managing all sales and marketing activities related to projectors, flat-panel plasma and CRT professional monitors.

“My view, then and today, is that Sony offers the best products and services across the board,” says Dellostretto. “I have always admired the enthusiasm and dedication of the company’s salespeople, our integration team, and support and service staff.”

Dellostretto began his 18-year career at Sony as a district sales manager based in Pittsburgh. Shortly thereafter, he was appointed regional sales manager for distribution. His responsibilities included managing a staff of twelve salespeople and more than 50 Sony professional audio and video equipment dealers.

“When I first came to the company, all the emphasis was on the broadcast and production marketplaces,” says Dellostretto. “In recent years, we’ve really broadened the markets for our display products. In addition to broadcasters and content creators, we’ve expanded our customer base to include the corporate marketplace, educational institutions, retailers, houses of worship, government and law enforcement agencies. And also hotels and restaurants, amusement parks, museums and movie theaters, stadiums and airports, among others.

“Today, we’re more focused on the application of the technology and how products can make each customer’s workflow more efficient and productive,” says Dellostretto. “For virtually every display need, we have a full complement of services and solutions for a variety of industries and businesses. And the list of applications and markets continues to grow rapidly. Our products are built for the emerging broadband era, enabling customers to display information anytime, anywhere.”

Dellostretto has witnessed Sony’s transition from standalone A/V products to an era of fully integrated networked systems. Today, the company’s audiovisual products incorporate industry standard technologies, enabling them to be integrated with other A/V and IT products.

Seeing the larger picture has always been one of Dellostretto’s fortes. In 1998, as director of sales, national distribution, he convinced management to establish a dedicated display sales force. His foresight of being able to see the growth opportunities for display technology before the advent of networked systems, and understanding the future needs of its customers, has propelled Sony to the head of the class in the display category.

Under Dellostretto’s management, Sony’s Display Systems Division continues to set its sights toward the future, primed by its leadership stake in bringing networked display solutions to the marketplace.

What product areas are represented by the Display Systems Division?

Building upon our core audiovisual expertise, Sony offers a wide range of high-quality display systems that operate with other hardware wired or wireless and incorporate industry standard technologies. Our commercial solutions include industry-leading high-definition broadcast and production monitors, cutting-edge, stylish and versatile plasma monitors, and a comprehensive lineup of projection systems ranging from SuperLite™ portable projectors for the mobile professional to SuperBright™ installation projectors for meeting rooms, classrooms, and houses of worship.

How does the Display Systems Division fit into the big picture at Sony?

Our display products are often central to large integration projects. You will find our display products at the center of full-scale facility projects such as networked projectors in corporate meeting rooms, boardrooms, and classrooms; plasma monitors in mobile truck applications delivered by our systems integration group; and monitor walls and multi-format broadcast monitors featured in broadcast facilities. Our videoconferencing systems, including our PCS-1600 set-top systems, are increasingly being packaged with our PlasmaPro™ monitors: the PFM-42B1 and PFM-32C1 models. For sales and marketing professionals on the go, Sony’s LCD projectors with Memory Stick® media capability are being packaged with VAIO® computers and digital cameras. The bottom line is our products are designed to enhance their communications.

How does Sony market and communicate to its constituents in these specialty areas and niche markets?

The essence of who we are is audiovisual. Today, we are focused on the application of the technology and how products blend with integrated A/V systems to make a customer’s workflow more efficient and productive. Plus, with A/V products such as Sony projectors now having the functionality to reside on a network, customers can conduct remote monitoring and diagnostics from their desktop.

Virtually everywhere you look these days, a Sony display product can be seen. Turn on your local or national TV news program and it is likely a Sony plasma sits next to your favorite anchor, showing visuals to help tell the story graphically. Walk by your favorite retail store and promotional material about a new pair of jeans may be running on a plasma display.

Today, our display business is focused on a variety of markets and our products are used in an ever-growing list of business and SOHO applications, each of which has special video and computer display needs. For example, Sony plasma screens are being deployed in corporate lobbies to display information and programming to guests, as monitor walls in television broadcast studios, in stores for retail point-of-sale, at trade shows to display large screen images, in hospitality sites for information and entertainment. You can also find them in movie theaters to display billboards of upcoming releases, in stadiums and airports broadcasting satellite TV and messages, and in executive boardrooms and conference rooms.

By listening to the needs of our customers, we can build solutions that meet their display objectives—now and in the future. The one constant for us is that the applications for Sony display technology are endless, ranging from corporations, education, government agencies, and broadcasters, to display analog, digital, and broadband content.

In the display sector, what value-add does Sony provide to your commercial and residential customers?

Like many Sony solutions in the display area, we are recognized for top-quality products that are integrationfriendly and feature innovative industrial designs, and strong customer support. The display market space is extremely competitive and requires out-of-the-box strategic thinking to differentiate among the displays on the market today. We have pioneered the introduction of networked products, including LCD projectors and plasma monitors, and had the vision to see the value of PCless presentations by bringing to market ultra-portable projectors, which incorporate Memory Stick technology.

Also, network products help to lower the cost of ownership for our customers, improve the ease-of-use, and extend the life of our products. The Memory Stick media platform is the common thread of a growing network of Sony’s digital products. Mobile professionals can go on a sales pitch and leave their laptop at home by sticking to the Sony VPD-MX10 projector. The projector saves presentations to JPEG images stored on Memory Stick cards. The presenter can simply pop storage cards into the projector’s Memory Stick slot for plug-in-and-present” information showcases, including instant PowerPoint® display and multimedia extravaganzas, or to show images taken with a digital camera.

Tying it all together from a customer relationship standpoint, we also have an extremely capable customer-centric service organization. This group provides unparalleled customer support for Sony displays over the phone, on the web, or at one of our regional service centers.

What is the current state of the display market? And what are the driving forces and market opportunities for growth?

The market is growing as new technology, such as plasma, LCD, DLP, and LCOS, continue to spur excitement and show promise for a strong future.

We’re delivering what customers want with smaller, lighter, brighter and better-performing projectors used for mobile training and distance learning applications. Prices are declining while products continue to improve, opening the market up to even more new customers. And plasma monitors are ushering in an era of wall-hanging display devices.

How does Sony leverage its synergies withother Sony divisions to offer customized
solutions for its customers?

Our display products have a place in virtually every application Sony Business Solutions and Systems Company addresses. You will find our display products at the center of full-scale facility projects or mobile truck applications. Videoconferencing systems are increasingly being packaged with plasma monitors. And LCD projectors with Memory Stick capability are being packaged with VAIO computers and digital cameras.

What have been some of the large integration projects, such as conference rooms and board rooms, in which Sony display technology have been the centerpiece as part of a total A/V solution?

You will find our display products at the center of full-scale facility projects including recent integration projects with Fortune 500 companies such as Dow Chemical, Regus Business Centres, Bank of America, and NASDAQ, to name a few.

For Dow Chemical, the world’s largest plastics manufacturer, Sony supplied much of the advanced audiovisual components, including our VPL- PX31 SuperBright™ LCD Projectors, as part of its plans to install 500 conference rooms worldwide called iRooms.

Before the iRooms, Dow had about 120 videoconferencing facilities around the world. The rooms were connected by dial-up ISDN lines and offered only the most basic interaction. While distance audio and video play an important role for the company, management realized they needed more. The company needed widely available document sharing and viewable changes, and the ability to show videotapes.

The Sony VPL-PX31 projector has many standard features Dow found attractive for its iRooms. From its outstanding brightness to its flexibility in multiple inputs and outputs, it was the right component for the job. In addition, with three interchangeable lenses, the projector can generate varying throw distances to accommodate different sized rooms. For Dow, the lens options were important because the company wanted to go with one model of projector that could work in rooms of varying dimensions all over the world.

Beyond these features, Sony’s research and design team came up with software control codes that were not part of the product’s initial features. Our VPL-PX31 projectors are hooked up to DowNet, Dow’s private Internet-protocol network, and to squeeze the most efficiency out of the system, Dow will be able to conduct diagnostics of the equipment in the 500 iRooms from one help desk in Midland, MI.

Also, many businesses are embracing plasma technology due to the high-resolution images, sleek size, and the flexibility of horizontal or vertical viewing. Recent installations of Sony PlasmaPro monitors that have showcased the versatility and flexibility of the technology include Regus Business Centres, Bank of America, and the NASDAQ MarketSite.

For instance, knowledge workers can plug into any of the 370 Regus Business Centres CyberCafes worldwide where executives can watch business news broadcasts, connect to headquarters or clients remotely via videoconference, or use the flat-panel monitor to display a PowerPoint presentation. The monitors also display important information, such as scheduled meetings and upcoming events, to viewers. Regus Business Centre clients can see and experience Sony plasma monitors in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.

In the financial sector, Bank of America chose Sony plasma monitors to upgrade its information displays and provide customers with broad access to financial data and services. The nation’s largest bank, with 4,323 centers around the country, has incorporated the plasma technology to make banking easier. The Sony plasma monitors are mounted side-by-side to create a ticker wall approximately 10 feet long. The screens provide a clear view from almost anywhere inside the branch. In addition to delivering real-time stock market prices, Bank of America can break out a screen to deliver important stock market news.

Also, looking to take advantage of the superb picture quality of plasma displays and its flexibility in presenting images, NASDAQ turned to Sony plasma monitors to broadcast computer and video images to visitors at its MarketSite Experience, a high-tech interactive exhibit at the new NASDAQ MarketSite in Times Square. The displays are used as electronic billboards to showcase computer and video images of events taking place at the NASDAQ MarketSite. The Sony monitors deliver broadcast-quality images with up to four times the resolution of conventional video signals. The result is exceptional images with fine detail. The Sony flat-panel monitors are also used as a presentation tool for press conferences and initial public offering announcements, turning computer graphics such as profit and loss and cash flow statement, and other financial data charts, into compelling visuals.

From a display perspective, what is Sony’s position regarding the convergence of the
audiovisual and information technology?

As audiovisual and information technologies continue to converge, there is no better way to
display these technologies than with projectors or plasma monitors. These display devices accept
most audio, video, and computer inputs, and they allow the convergence of A/V and IT to be seamless to the customer.

In addition, many of our display products are already IP addressable. Sony Network Projectors offer a complete yet flexible solution for any company. Our projectors, based on Microsoft Windows CE® software, offer PC-free and cable-free presentation. Presentation files such as Microsoft PowerPoint®, Excel®, Word® or Adobe Acrobat® are sent in their original format to the projector and then displayed on the screen. Even more impressive is our Remote Desktop Protocol technology. This feature allows you to connect over the network to almost any PC and have the PC GUI displayed on the projector. It’s a network WYSIWYG echnology--What You See Is What You Get!

What are the key benefits of network capable displays?

Sony Network Projectors decrease the customer’s cost of ownership. Using Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, users can monitor and diagnose Sony projectors, which can automatically send an e-mail or page to notify users of bulb life and other key information. Similarly, you can set time-based thresholds, which allows the projector to send e-mails after a certain number of hours have elapsed on the lamp. On an even higher level, our Sony Network Projectors are Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) compliant. Have a problem with projector theft? Set a customizable “trap” which can alert security if a projector suddenly stops responding to theSNMP management program.

Sony Network Projectors are easy to use. OurNetwork Projectors act as Hyper Text Transfer Protocol web servers offering varied levels of functionality from File Transfer/Presentation to Remote Setup, all the way up to Firmware Upgrades.

Convenience is also a key benefit because customers have the ability to send a presentation to a projector or a plasma monitor without physically connecting that device. That makes it easier for multiple people to share the device, making it possible to exchange files with other people in remote locations.