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Sony's CEO To Retire/Blockbuster In Bid To Buy Hollywood Video |
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 The CEO of Sony has decided to step down. What makes this so interesting is his replacement. The board of Sony decided to replace Nobuyuki Idei not with another native born Japanese, but with a Westerner. British born Howard Stringer will be the new CEO of Sony. He is currently the head of Sony America. More on him in a minute.
Also to lose their jobs at Sony are President Kunitake Ando. The tremors do not stop there. Ken Kutaragi, known as the father of the PlayStation game console, resigned his post on the board of directors and lost all of his executive priveleges.
What does all of this mean? Well, it is definitely a shake up. It is no secret that Sony and Apple had something in the works. Nobuyuki Idei made a presence at Macworld in January for a reason. I am not sure what this means for Apple, but let's look at the facts and see what we come up with.
Let's get back to Howard Stringer. Mr. Stringer has been leading the Sony America business unit. Making him CEO is sending a clear message that Sony, as a company, has lost the pulse of the West. If you look a little deeper, there might be some really good news for Apple. Stringer is a former TV man. He knows the entertainment business. He helped negotiate Sony's takeover of MGM. That's right, Metro Goldwyn Meyer. That's right, the guys who make and sell movies. Things start to look really interesting again.
Now where does Blockbuster fit in here? Well, Blockbuster is in a bid to take over Hollywood Video. This in itself is not very interesting. However, in an interview weith the CEO of Blockbuster, I learned some very interesting facts.
In the interview, he named one of the largest competitors to the video business as low-end retail. Interestingly, services like Netflix and video-on-demand were further down on his list. Why is this important to Apple? Well, last year, 2 out of every 3 dollars Americans spent on videos were to the retail chains. Americans preferred buying movies over renting them. To the tune of some 16 billion dollars.
It is no coincidence that the CEO of Sony made it into Steve Jobs' keynote in January. In order to do video right, as Steve Jobs would put it, they would need the major studios in Hollywood to buy in. I think Sony/MGM would be a good start and I don't think that it is a stetch to say that track is already being laid.
The CEO of Blockbuster is basically setting up the market. Steve Jobs has said that people don't want to own movies, they would rather rent. Well, that might have been true when he said it, but the market has definitely changed. And I think Apple is right there.
It should be a very interesting year.
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March 7 2005, 8:19 AM EDT, by |
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