After World War II, in 1946, it was Masaru Ibuka, an engineer, and Akio Morita, a physicist, who started a company with $845 and 20 employees. They began repairing electrical equipment in a bombed out Department Store in Tokyo. They called the company Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering. The name was changed to “Sony” which was chosen as a mix of the Latin word sonus, which is the root of sonic and sound, and the English word “sunny.” they wanted a name that did not limit the scope of what the company could become.

In 1954, they obtained a license to make transistors. Transistors had not been used in radios. Sony made the first all-transistor radio,

Their inventive and innovative products have included the Trinitron Color Televison, The Betamax VCR, the Walkman, the 3.5 inch micro floppy disk, the electronic camera, the first CD Player, and the first consumer camcorder.

Sony bought Columbia Records and Columbia Pictures. Sony got in the game product area with their Sony Play Station.

In the 45 years since the company began, it has grown from 20 employees to over 100,000 people around the world. The name Sony was a good choice since now the company is in so many fields that involve sound that a limiting name would not have fit all of the industries they now dominate.

This entry was posted by Bill Tusan on Thursday, February 23rd, 2006 at 6:19 pm and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.