Sony Corporation Research and Development

Sony grass query and DevelopmentSony Corporation is an international compevery that was established in 1946 by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita, the companys headquarter is located in Minato, capital of Japan, Japan. The company was originally called Tokyo telecommunication Engineering Corp which started with as little as $1500. Ibuka and Morita decided to employ the firm internationally in the 1950s and changed the name to Sony since the name Tokyo Telecommunication Engineering Corp was already taken at the time. The premier product Sony released onto the market was a transistor radio in 1955 which was the root one in Japan at the time some separate key products developed by Sony argon the Head sink stereo walkman in 1979, clump Disc Discman in 1984 and Mini Disc system which was launched in 1992. at once Sony offers a wide range of electronic equipments such(prenominal) as bag and portable audio system, digital cameras, DVD players, televisions, video game console, quick phone s and both home and portable computers. The company has become extremely prospered today according to its consolidated financial results, its sales and operating tax income were 78.88 meg US dollars in 2009. So righteous what makes the company so successful despite operating in such a war-ridden industry and starting with so little fund? To answer this inquire we lead examine the organisation, management and research and developments of the company as closely as any strategic alliances and quislingisms with different firms.Before we ascertain at the research and developments carried out by Sony Corporations, I would like to quickly take down the recent trend of RD activities in the UK as well as the global. tally to the DIUS review, the 850 largest corporate in the UK spent over 21.6 billion on RD activities in 2007, which was an increase of 7% compargond to the previous year, 2006. Globally, 1,400 of the institutions most active companies invested over 274 billion in 2007, which increased by 9.5% from the previous year. These data suggest that question and development becomes more(prenominal) and more popular to companies all over the world as companies starting to understand the importance of RD activitiesRD is vital to the survival of a company due to the increasing competition from rivals in all change of industries in the world. Companies need to constantly improve the design and performance of its products in auberge to stay ahead of its competition. By having better products with better design, performances and more importantly products that suits consumers taste than rivals, a company can gain a larger portion of the market shares, therefore making more profits.Research and development activities can usually be separated into two principal(prenominal) categories, they are internal RD and non-internal RD. Internal research and development is basically any RD activities that are carried out or managed by the company itself. On the othe r hand, non-internal research and development are RD activities that arent operated by the company itself, strategic alliances and collaboration with other companies is a good example. Sony Corporation employs both internal and non-internal RD activities which we ordain be discussing shortlyThe below diagram demonstrates the amount of money spent in RD by Sony Corporation from 1998 to 2007. As we can see from the diagram, RD disbursement has increased gradually from 375314 billion yens to 514483 billion yens from 1998 to 2003. And from 2003 to 2007, the amount on money invested in RD fluctuates between 514483 billion yens to 543937 billion yens. Sony Corporation spent approximately from 5.8% to 7.8% of their sales and operating revenues on RD during this period of time.So just what did Sony Corporations RD focuses on? According to the companys fact book that was published in 2006 on its website, it say that the companys RD will be nidus on four main areas, they arePlatforms for home and wandering(a) electronicsSemiconductor technologiesDevices technologies andSoftware technologiesTo improve the platforms for home and mobile electronics, Sony focuses on developing products that support the high definition content. In semiconductor technologies, Sony focuses on developing electronic applications for Cell, which is a very powerful microprocessor.In devices technologies, Sony is focusing on developing Blu-ray disc technologies which is designed to enhance High rendering vision to the close level. Finally for packet technology, Sony focuses on developing software that helps consumers to operate electronic products in a more user well-disposed way. Other software focuses are codecs and Digital Rights Managemnet (DRM) which is designed to protect products such as music, video and ebooks.Sony Corporation has a total of three developments chemical group and four research centres around the world. There 3 groups and 4 centres are under Sonys direct control, they are technology Development Group this plane section involves in developing common element technologies and newly launched products in order to expand the business.Display Device development Group this department involves in developing new display for the next generation of productsCore Technology Development Group this department involves in developing new devices for the next generation of productsMaterials Laboratories this department involves in finding new advanced materials to baffle more superior products which in turn increases the competiveness of the company.Information Technologies Laboratories this department focuses on researching in new information in order to produce products that set apart from rivalrys products6)A-cubed Research Center this department involves in research of go through signal processing technologiesSony Computer Science Laboratories The seven departments we have just looked at is operated by Sony Corporative Headquarter directly, which means they are in-house RD, we will next look at the non-internal RD activities carried out by Sony, its strategic alliances and collaborations with other major companysSony has a large number of different strategy alliances and collaborations with different companies. In this essay, it will be focusing on two of the most well cognise examples, they are Sony Ericsson and Sandisk. Sony Ericsson was established in October 2001, it was a joint venture of Sony