Sony boss: don't underestimate Steve Jobs
Regarding the upcoming iPhone, Stringer said, "The good news is that Steve Jobs spotted a trend that we've seen. The phone is a convergence device, between music and a phone. We are all building variations on the same theme. We have sold plenty of Walkman phones [from Sony Ericsson], especially in Europe."
The Sony boss said his company had its own version of iPod in the works before Apple did. "In 1997 we were working with IBM on electronic music distribution and could have put this out five years earlier [than iPod]," Stringer said. " But we couldn't get our people to understand software. And we are a music company. They saw digital media, panicked and didn't like it."
In the end Sony designed a closed music system that didn't work, he added. When it comes to Blu-ray verses HD DVD, Stringer is very confident, according to Smart House Magazine. "We are selling 3-to-1 verses them," he said. "We have exclusives with Disney, Fox, Sony [and Lion's Gate] and they have the top 15 of 20 movies at the moment. At some point Blu-ray will take over based on ... this support."