NOBUYUKI IDEI: PRESIDENT, SONY CORP.; TOKYO

WE WILL INTEGRATE ELECTRONICS AND ENTERTAINMENT INTO ONE.

Sony never needed new leadership more than it did in April 1995, when Nobuyuki Idei leapfrogged a dozen more senior executives to become the company's president. As the world's trailblazer in entertainment electronics, Sony invaded Hollywood in 1989 by buying Columbia and TriStar Pictures; in November 1994 the corporation took a $3.2 billion write-off for five years of studio mismanagement. Soon afterward, Sony co-founder Akio Morita, who had continued to help guide the company despite suffering a stroke in 1993, resigned as chairman. Then Sony found itself losing ground to rivals in the race to develop the digital videodisc, expected to...

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