Sony Year-end/4Q Financials

Without the 15-20% increase in the strengh of the Yen in the last 18 months...

 

Stop chatting rubbish. Sir Howard has been the best CEO and president that Sony could have asked for, without him they would have been completely over-leveraged and probably been a takeover target during the recession. Sir Howard put Sony on firm footing again after years of neglect and poor management by Idei. Please get your facts straight. If anything the outsider tag has suited Sir Howard perfectly as he has been able to execute a number of cost cutting plans and overseas expansion plans without the Japanese execs telling him no.

He is the best chance Sony have of becoming the behemoth they once were, and we will see once the recession properly ends and western economies recover that they will be best placed of all Japanese CE to expand and grow.

 

Yes being an outsider (and more importantly non-Japanese) allowed him more leeway to make unpopular un-japanese like moves to break Sony out of the downward spiral they were in.

It was a win-win move for Sony. If he failed, they could blame it on him being an outsider pushing non-traditional ideals without potential backlash among the Japanese investors.

I wouldn't exactly go that far. Sony will be the most "western" of Japanese companies in ideology and practice, but it remains to be seen if that will be enough to propel it to the forefront of companies based in Japan once the recession is over.

Regards,
SB

 

And without factoring the 15/20% decrease of the euro value.