Sony is a company that has faced many challenges and witnessed a number of disappointments in recent years. At various times, the company has absolutely dominated huge portions of the consumer elecronics market--in televisions, game consoles, portable music players, and more. Now it faces domination in lots of its markets. Many observers feel that the company became unfocused as it spread out to many types of market in the 1990s.
Recently, though, Sony has made a number of notable moves focused on open source. I won't go as far as ZDNet's Dana Blankenhorn and call these moves a revolution, but they are significant, and in several cases they are smart. As Blankenhorn notes, Howard Stringer, who used to be head of CBS and has been chairman of Sony since 2005, may have something to do with Sony's cultural shifts, but it's the shifts themselves that are really of note.?
