▪ Sony's Walkman Creator Retires
"Nobutoshi Kihara, the engineer behind the Walkman, has left Sony. In the late seventies, one of the co-chairman of Sony, Morita, requested the audio division create a portable tape player capable of playing his operas while he was on transpacific flights to the US. After less than a year, the Walkman was released to the public and revolutionized the music industry."
Times have changed since Nobutoshi Kihara sketched out designs for the revolutionary Walkman on a piece of paper.
Kihara, who has slipped quietly into retirement after nearly six decades at Sony, also played key roles in improving the company's televisions and mini video cameras. "We made good, quality products. Our founders also knew the importance of advertising and promotion. That's how the company grew," said the soft-spoken 80-year-old, dressed in a khaki engineer's uniform.
"We did not think about expanding the company for the sake of expansion. It just grew as we worked on our products," he told AFP before retiring as head of a Sony research center where he spent his last working years.
"Back in my days, we had to draw product designs on papers. I would close my eyes and imagine our products. I would imagine joggers with Walkmans to see how the hinges should move or how the products fit into the lives of the users."
Proud to have been a Sony employee and former student of Ibuka, Kihara said he believes the company's rank-and-file engineers will keep pushing the technological boundaries.
"I am confident that our soul as engineers is being passed on to young people. Being unique and creative -- that's the quality of Sony," he said.
Few would dispute that the original Walkman, which went on sale in 1979, changed the way people around the world listened to music.
Ironically, however, US computer maker Apple trumped Sony in the market for new digital portable music players with its phenomenally successful iPod. Sony has also lagged behind rivals like Panasonic in super-thin televisions.
Sony has gone through a turbulent spell in recent years, including recalls of millions of its laptop computer batteries that have dealt a serious blow to its fragile recovery from a profit slump.
As many as 9.6 million Sony batteries could now be recalled and last week the group slashed its full-year operating profit forecast by 62 percent to 50 billion yen (421 million dollars) -- about one-quarter of last year's levels.
On Thursday it posted a second-quarter loss of 20.8 billion yen.
Times have changed since Nobutoshi Kihara sketched out designs for the revolutionary Walkman on a piece of paper.
Kihara, who has slipped quietly into retirement after nearly six decades at Sony, also played key roles in improving the company's televisions and mini video cameras. "We made good, quality products. Our founders also knew the importance of advertising and promotion. That's how the company grew," said the soft-spoken 80-year-old, dressed in a khaki engineer's uniform.
"We did not think about expanding the company for the sake of expansion. It just grew as we worked on our products," he told AFP before retiring as head of a Sony research center where he spent his last working years.
"Back in my days, we had to draw product designs on papers. I would close my eyes and imagine our products. I would imagine joggers with Walkmans to see how the hinges should move or how the products fit into the lives of the users."
Proud to have been a Sony employee and former student of Ibuka, Kihara said he believes the company's rank-and-file engineers will keep pushing the technological boundaries.
"I am confident that our soul as engineers is being passed on to young people. Being unique and creative -- that's the quality of Sony," he said.
Few would dispute that the original Walkman, which went on sale in 1979, changed the way people around the world listened to music.
Ironically, however, US computer maker Apple trumped Sony in the market for new digital portable music players with its phenomenally successful iPod. Sony has also lagged behind rivals like Panasonic in super-thin televisions.
Sony has gone through a turbulent spell in recent years, including recalls of millions of its laptop computer batteries that have dealt a serious blow to its fragile recovery from a profit slump.
As many as 9.6 million Sony batteries could now be recalled and last week the group slashed its full-year operating profit forecast by 62 percent to 50 billion yen (421 million dollars) -- about one-quarter of last year's levels.
On Thursday it posted a second-quarter loss of 20.8 billion yen.
posted by cik at 11:33 AM EST.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
:: Home