Is Sony finally ready to play?

Since Steve Jobs introduced the iPod, I have been rhetorically asking my clients, “… can you tell me why the number one consumer music product is now manufactured by a computer company and the number one consumer electronics company isn’t even in the game?”  My answer was validated in the following article.  Let’s hope that Sony is ready to get down to business.  We have been waiting for them way too long in this category!

From Yahoo! News: TOKYO – Sony missed out on potential sales from MP3 players and other gadgets because it was overly proprietary about music and entertainment content, the head of Sony Corp’s video-game unit acknowledged Thursday. 

Ken Kutaragi, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., said he and other Sony employees have been frustrated for years with management’s reluctance to introduce products like Apple Computer Inc.’s iPod, mainly because the Tokyo company had music and movie units that were worried about content rights.

Now, Sony’s divisions are finally beginning to work together and share a common agenda, Kutaragi said at the Foreign Correspondents Club in Tokyo.

“It’s just starting,” he told reporters. “We are growing up.”

High-ranking Sony officials have rarely publicly said their proprietary views were a mistake. Kutaragi, who has long been viewed as a candidate to lead Sony, was unusually direct in acknowledging Sony had made an error and blaming proprietary concerns from its entertainment division. Read the full article.