Blame it on the Betamax. In 1975, Sony unveiled the first home video-cassette recorder and created a new market. But Betamax ultimately lost out to the rival VHS standard, in large part because VHS had the backing of Hollywood's big studios. Sony concluded that the best way to promote the adoption of its technologies was to get into the content business, since content owners have a big influence over which technology standards live or die. Hence its unique corporate combination of consumer electronics and content. But is the resulting hybrid a Frankenstein, or a new breed? That is the urgent question facing Sony's new boss, Sir Howard Stringer (see pages 83-85).
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