Sony’s (NYSE: SNE) new CEO Kazuo Hirai says the way for the company to turn around is to use the successful Playstation model. The PS3 is a gaming console, internet device, and entertainment platform. It can play high definition DVDs, stream content over the internet, work as a platform for game software and as a global communications device. How hard can it be to make Sony’s cameras, PCs, and TVs to do the same? He can ask all of the companies that have tried to compete with the Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) “ecosystem” of hardware, apps, and the iTunes store.
Saying that he will make hard decisions about the firm’s business model, Hirai remarked
“It starts with great hardware but that’s not the entire equation. It’s got to be combined with software, content, services. That’s the whole combination that we need to bring our customers.”
As usual, the hard decisions will include ones that all new CEOs at troubled companies make. He will fire a lot of people to reduce “redundancies”