Hirai fights back (against Hedge Fond leader)

The New York Times posted an interesting article about Sony. As you know Hedge fond leader Mr. Loeb has a considerable share in Sony. Last week he asked Sony to drop the electronic business. But Sony CEO Hirai gave him a (metaphoric) kick in the butt and this is his answer:

“Mr. Loeb’s prescriptions for Sony are shortsighted, merely milking the company’s profit-making content business for good money to throw after the bad….He defended the company’s continued focus on electronics. “Electronics has a future. And it is in Sony’s DNA,” he said at a corporate presentation. “It is my mission to revive it.”

There are some glimmers that Sony is finding its way again, even as Apple and Samsung widen their lead. Sony’s sleek new XPeria Z smartphone has received generally rave reviews. Photography buffs have called its high-end, full-frame RX1 camera the most advanced compact camera.

“Not so long ago, we had despaired at Sony’s ability to ever again produce stellar products (especially when faced with duds like the Dash alarm clock and the Rolly music player),” Damian Thong, Tokyo-based technology analyst at Macquarie Securities, said in a report published Thursday.

“Yet we now have had a consistent run of beautifully designed, technologically advanced, class-leading products,” Mr. Thong said. “We think these products hark back to Sony’s glory days.”

Editor’s note: I like MR. Hirai way of thinking. A company is not only about making money, but also about dreaming and doing something. Also Mr.Dell told Steve Jobs to quit the Apple company (in the mid 90’s). And see what happened after. You don’t solve a problem by selling what doesn’t work. If you do that every time you have a problem you end up with not having a company anymore :)