Howard Stringer Quotations

When color TV arrived, it just sat there and you saw color. I've been to retail stores where there were no 3-D glasses at all and the 3-D images were all blurred. People were coming in and saying, 'I don't want to buy that.' There's a lot of marketing connected to introducing technologies and especially introducing new experiences.

Frankly, I was surprised at how generous the Japanese press has been to the idea of a foreigner running Sony.

For Sony, owning a studio is a gamble and probably a pretty good one, now that in the broadband era having content is a great advantage when you sell devices that in a ubiquitous world of distribution can actually show programs, movies, content directly to the consumer. So that you actually create, in a digital world, real synergy.

The American movie, in part because America's a melting pot, the cultural hodgepodge that America makes, generates movies that have appeal across all international boundaries. And that's really not true for most domestic film industries. It's no longer true of France and Italy, less true than it used to be of the U.K.

Content and technology are strange bed fellows. We are joined together. Sometimes we misunderstand each other. But isn't that after all the definition of marriage?

I've played a Nintendo Wii. I don't see it as a competitor. It's more of an expensive niche game device. We're selling a lot of PlayStation 3s now and it's still the best way to buy a Blu-ray player.

I was very short. Everybody else was two years older in my class, and I had curly hair and was teacher's pet.

I get really frustrated during a crisis when I go through all the cable channels and find - very often with the exception of CNN - that I'm not watching news at all. You think, 'Well, God... there are talk shows, talk shows, talk shows and everyone is an expert!

The energy of the Kennedy years was completely compelling... I had a sense of a generous society eager to change the world. Idealism was very contagious. So that's why I went to America. I didn't intend to stay.

The hardest thing about being at Sony was not the travel; it was being divorced from the public and private life I had in New York. Travelling as much as I did, while I didn't lose connection with my friends, I lost a sense of belonging.

Free is not an alternative. My company did not turn a profit last year.

The futures of Crackle and Hulu and so forth become more and more important as we connect to more and more devices. We need our content to make our services as attractive as Apple's or Amazon's or Microsoft's. We're in a brave new world of fierce competition.

When the digital world is really here, movies can be disseminated from satellite direct to homes and direct to small theaters in Mongolia and northern Russia and obscure places that the market for movies is going to grow and grow and grow.

You will see a 3-D movie in a movie theater for the shared experience of it - or for a date, and so on. You don't all sit at home getting your entertainment in a vacuum.

In the digital world, he who hesitates is abandoned. So you have to generate 3-D excitement with as many devices as you can find.

Japan can't get anything on the market very cheaply because it has a large, relatively highly paid workforce which you can't fire.

Doesn't anyone here think this sounds like a vision of hell? While we are all competing or dying, when will there be time for sex or music or books? Stop the world, I want to get off.

I left the golden age of documentaries to go into the golden days of the 'CBS Evening News.' You could see that the audiences were eroding.

People are going to like 3-D in their family photos.

Sometimes Hollywood is a small town on the West Coast of America at the furthest point from everywhere else, and that can make it a little provincial and insular.

No other content company has such a complete understanding of technology, and no other technology company has Sony's insight into content.

Software has been designed inside those independent silos, with a tendency for repetition. Now we have the ability to coordinate software development...We have time with the PSP (PlayStation Portable), and the video revolution, so that nobody else will slip by us.

Silo walls between business units that impede cooperation and communication need to come down,

He's a star. Nobody turns down a meeting with him.

Staying ahead of this curve by offering the consumer truly differentiated products where we can maintain our standing as a premium brand is a fundamental strategic imperative. We need to focus selectively and aggressively on being the No. 1 consumer electronics and entertainment company on the planet.

Launching PlayStation3 is critical and imperative across the entire Sony group. We will galvanize our group-wide resources like never before to ensure its success.

I think if we're going to sell these new goods and services to the public, we first have the obligation not to mention the bottom-line imperative but to explain them clearly, ... That's the first step toward simplification. Something that's genuinely easy to use is also genuinely easy to talk about using.

We're between launches in Europe and America, and that just didn't fit the cycle.

The PS3 is only the beginning for cell, ... New intelligent devices will be powered my smaller and more powerful processors and will be directly connected with one another.

We are going to achieve our goals by breaking down the existing silo walls and eliminating the highly decentralized structure we've maintained in the past,

While quarterly performance and market share are important, overall performance, together with artist relationships and the development of new and creative talent are paramount, ... Andy is exceptionally well-suited to manage the company in this challenging and ever-changing environment.

Though best remembered for creating one of the great film heroes of all time, his talents transcend typecasting, ... His body of work not only stands the test of time, but illuminates a career more extraordinary than James Bond himself.

When a company gets to be the size of Sony and revenue growth slows, it makes it very hard for young, dynamic people to move up the corporate ladder. How you change that in a culture where everybody has known each other for most of their working lives is the task, especially at the senior level.

With the installed base of PlayStation, we do think we have an enormous advantage.

To our customers Sony no longer represents the only alternative,

We have made promises before but we failed to execute them. We must fight like the Sony warriors that we are.

We need to convince investors ... that we are going to execute on these targets and take them very seriously,

Andy Lack has executed this very complicated merger between Sony Music and BMG music brilliantly,

People forget it took 10 years for color ( TV ) to get across the country.

Although our electronics businesses are under real pressure today, we firmly believe in its future prospects and potential.

exceptionally well-suited to manage the company in this challenging and ever-changing environment.

We are shattering internal silos ... and reorganizing to become more nimble and to have a focused product lineup.

This is a tremendous win for movie lovers everywhere.

In the digital age, content lends both brain and muscle to our electronics business,

In a company where jobs were for life, it created competition that made Sony the great company it is, ... It created artificial competition, which you needed.

The walls that impeded communications have to come down and we have to focus R&D on products that are most likely to yield rewards.

Apple would not have sold its devices if they didn't have their agreements with music companies. Sony did not do that, even though we own the music business.

Sony and its peers all face tremendous pressure in the marketplace, but we have a sense of urgency and we have a sense of purpose. We can and will compete vigorously.

Sony BMG did not intend to punish the consumer.

Sony BMG wasn't intended on punishing the consumer.

Sony is a global company with 70 percent of its earnings outside Japan and so local politics like that is less clear and appropriate for me to comment on,

Sony?s brand is one of the company?s greatest assets, ... Andy will work toward creating a brand personality unique to Sony, one that reflects all aspects of our business.

There was not much love lost between electronics and the movie company because 10 years ago, the movie company was busy losing money and the electronics company was very angry about that, ... The technology people said, 'Those people in Hollywood are spending all the money!'

I have to determine whether the joy of craplets is worth preserving.

No other content company has Sony's intuitive grasp of technology and no other company has Sony's intimate understanding of the demands of content.

Video games lend themselves completely to 3-D.

The loyalty within Sony is quite extraordinary, and that's a remarkable thing. Some of that has to be sustained because it's part of the Sony spirit.