Sony is a global household name. Look around your house – you may have a Trinitron television, a VAIO computer, a PlayStation or a Walkman. Or maybe movie DVDs such as Men In Black and Stuart Little. Or music CDs by Billie Holiday, Michael Jackson or Macy Gray. Sony’s role in the evolution of electronics over the half a century is undeniable, offering the world the first transistor radio, the first portable stereo, the first home video-game console using three-dimensional graphics, among others. This book tells the story of Sony’s past and present, and the vision and drive of founders, Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita. Beyond narrative history, the book serves as a case study for how entrepreneurs, with the right combination of tenacity, passion, creativity and an eye for the future, can build a company from the humblest of beginnings into a global giant, with operating revenues of more than US$50 billion and close to 170,000 employees.

The rapid changes in technology and the advent of the Broadband Age have made it difficult for Sony to rest on the laurels it earned in the past. But even as Sony strives to develop beyond traditional realms of a consumer-electronics company to become a global giant of broadband entertainment, one constant will almost always remain within the company’s culture, and that is Sony’s drive to think outside conventional wisdom and capture consumers’ imagination, continuing to make them see products and exclaim, “Ah, it’s a Sony!”

Shu Shin Luh is a freelance journalist who writes regularly about technology, management and corporate governance issues around Asia. She contributes to publications such as the South China Morning Post, the China Post, the American Lawyer Magazine and the Corporate Counsel Magazine, and has won awards for her reporting on consumer rights issues. She has worked for the Asian Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. Currently, she lives in Taipei, Taiwan.