Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

The future with SIR Stringer:

Stringer has also been highly influential in persuading Sony's Japanese leadership to invest in building the kind of content library that could give its new consumer electronics offerings an edge.

He strongly urged the purchase by a Sony-led consortium of film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, for instance — a move seen as key to its upcoming new high-definition DVD format Blu-Ray and to provide content for its new PlayStation Portable.

"That is why content is at the heart of Sony's strategy," Stringer said in a speech last March. "Like a new world orbiting an ancient sun, the broadband entertainment planet will orbit around content, as surely as the analog world did before it. Content is the flame that beckons."

Problem is, SIR, a lot of ancient suns tried the gag before and ultimately got flamed: Victor Talking Machine, Brunswick (yep, the boats and bowling people; they entered the racket because Prohibition took care of their number-one biz -- bar fixtures), WARNER BROS. (it bought Brunswick's CONTENT businesses and sold them a year later), EMI (once big in home electronics in the UK), RCA, CBS (it sold phonographs and TVs -- remember?), Philips, MATSUSHITA...and all that ORBITING Sony's done is what got it going in CIRCLES. But if you want to waste your shareholders' money that's your business. I'm glad it's not mine.