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In March 1968, Morita set up a joint venture in Japan between Sony and CBS Records, with him as president, to manufacture "software" for Sony's hardware. [9] Morita became president of Sony in 1971, [10] taking over from Ibuka who had served from 1950 to 1971. [11]
Morita became the best connected Japanese businessman in the United States and served in the international advisory boards for Pan Am, IBM and Morgan Guaranty Trust and set up profitable joint ventures with CBS, Texas Instruments and Prudential Life Insurance.
Nov 7, 2008 · Founder and creator of Sony, he moved his family to the United States in 1963 in order to better understand the American consumer and make Sony a truly global brand—a brave move for a man...
The story of Akio Morita, who has made Sony a household word in the United States and other parts of the world, is more than a success saga. It tells much about how Japan may already have...
- A Symbol of Japan’s Postwar Economic Miracle
- A Visionary Name Choice
- Resisting Temptation
- Ibuka’S Toy Becomes The Walkman
- New York Debut
- Controversial Opinions
- Amiable and Magnanimous
In December 2020, Ezra Vogel, famed US Japanologist and professor emeritus at Harvard University, passed away. Just a year earlier, in an interview with Mainichi newspaper’s Economist magazine, he lamented contemporary Japan’s loss of “hunger.” He spoke of the passing of the prominent entrepreneurs of postwar Japan, including Morita Akio, Honda Sōi...
The name “Sony” was the brainchild of Morita, who was adamant that the company name should be easy for people outside Japan to pronounce. He knew that neither Tōkyō Tsūshin Kōgyō nor its Japanese abbreviation, Tōtsūkō, would do. He and Ibuka struggled to find a suitable name, finally settling on “Sony” in 1955. The name, registered in katakana, was...
The background to Sony’s emergence as a global brand includes a decisive episode that is now company lore. In 1955, the company developed the world’s second transistor radio, and a major US watch manufacturer offered to buy 100,000 units. Morita was initially impressed with the offer, given the scale of their business, but his excitement cooled whe...
Morita also possessed an eye for recognizing potential hit products. The story of the Walkman portable headphone cassette playeris a classic example. It began with a request in 1978 to developers by Ibuka, then honorary chairman, to customize a portable cassette player for him. He wanted to be able to enjoy music in stereo when flying overseas on a...
Morita’s pioneering global approach was radical. In 1962, Sony opened a showroom on New York’s Fifth Avenue. Morita believed that demand for Sony products would be spurred by a prominent presence in the Big Apple, visited by people from all over the world. A part of him also dreamed of brandishing the Japanese flag in this major arena of the busine...
Thanks to Morita’s desire to fit in, he gained many friends and acquaintances from diverse fields, including leading businessmen, heads of state, politicians, and artists. But the 1980s saw a growing fear in the West of the threat posed by Japanese business, and increasing trade friction with the United States and Europe. In 1989, Morita co-authore...
The first time I met Morita, I was impressed that although he was chairman of the company, he wore the same gray uniform as the employees, and was smiling and amiable throughout the interview. This man was contending with world heavyweights on an equal footing, but he was not intimidating. If anything, he had an air of humility. Many hoped that he ...
Morita knew Sony had to make great products that had to be successful in the United States and not just Japan. After developing Sony’s first transistor radio, he went out to American distributors to sell his product.
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Jun 7, 2023 · Learn how Sony’s founder Akio Morita transformed Japan from a producer of paper umbrellas to a leader in high-tech products, and how he criticized America’s economic and social problems in his controversial book “Japan Can Say No”.
