Stringer

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- A single button on one of Apple's phones or tablets might have gone through 50 or more iterations before ending up in the final design, one of the company's lead designers said today.

The first expert witness in the jury trial between Apple and Samsung here was Christopher Stringer, who has been an industrial designer at Apple since 1995 and helped design the iPhone along with other Apple products.

In his testimony, Stringer -- who donned an all-white suit to court -- said that the design process for any product typically began with lots … Read more

The winds of change continue to gust at Sony. The electronics and entertainment giant announced today that Sony Pictures Entertainment Chairman and CEO Michael Lynton will become CEO at Sony Corporation of America (SCA) on June 27.

Lynton's primary responsibilities will include overseeing Sony's vast entertainment empire, which includes Sony Pictures, Sony Music, and Sony/ATV Music Publishing.

"Michael is absolutely the right choice to succeed me as CEO of SCA," said Howard Stringer, who is leaving his posts as SCA chief and Sony Corp. chief. "He understands the vital importance of fulfilling Sony's … Read more

Sony, having suffered through years of gaffes under CEO Howard Stringer, badly needed some change.

That change came today when Sony announced that Kazuo Hirai will become the company's new president and chief executive, effective April 1. Stringer put a good face on the change, saying that his company has been working on "succession plans" over the last few years and that Hirai is the ideal choice to take over Sony.

"Kaz is a globally focused executive for whom technology and the cloud are familiar territory, content is highly valued, and digital transformation is second nature,&… Read more

Kazuo Hirai is becoming Sony's new chief executive, replacing Howard Stringer on April 1, the Japanese electronics giant announced Wednesday.

Hirai led Sony's PlayStation gaming business and more recently took over a growing electronics group, and Stringer said in a statement he recommended him for the CEO post:

Three years ago, I started to work with the board on succession plans, and in February 2009 we named a new generation of leaders to be my management team. Among them was Kaz Hirai, who had distinguished himself through his work in the PlayStation and networked entertainment businesses. Kaz is … Read more

Sony has its eye on cranking up TV screen resolution.

The electronics and entertainment giant kicked off its CES press conference this evening by unveiling a prototype "Crystal LED display" that uses miniature light-emitting diodes in place of pixels. The technology, which uses 6 million LEDs mounted on the front of the display, is superior to LCD and plasma and promises "super contrast and superwide color gamut," Sony CEO Howard Stringer told those assembled.

While Sony has this 55-inch prototype on display at the conference, it is nowhere near production or consumers' hands. (CNET staffers at … Read more

NEW YORK--Sony CEO Howard Stringer told attendees today at a leadership conference celebrating IBM's centennial here that change is never easy for companies that have successful pasts, including his own company.

"All great companies have a rowboat mentality," he said. "You row hard, but you're still always looking behind you to the past."

He said it's difficult for companies that have been successful in the past to resist reliving that past as they try to build businesses for the future.

Stringer admitted that Sony--which essentially invented the first portable music device, the Walkman--was … Read more

BERLIN--The PlayStation Network, Sony's hacker-beleaguered online gameplay system, has recovered from its earlier woes and is growing again, Chief Executive Howard Stringer said today.

"I'm pleased to tell you that the PSN is more secure and better than ever," Stringer said at a news conference at the IFA electronics show here. "We are aggressively expanding its content. We have more than 3 million new customers since the network came back online, and sales are exceeding what we had before the cyberattacks."

Stringer gave the impression he was trying to take the offensive in his … Read more

We've asked a lot of questions about the Sony security breach, some of which Sony has been able to answer. But here's a big so far unanswered one: where has Howard Stringer been?

As chairman, chief executive, and president of Sony, he's been strangely silent on the failure of his company's networked entertainment security systems, which were hacked more than two weeks ago.

When PlayStation Network went offline April 20, Sony communicated with customers via its official PlayStation Blog. Company spokesman Patrick Seybold periodically posted tidbits of information about the outage and repeatedly apologized for the … Read more

Sony's CEO has named an heir apparent.

Howard Stringer, while making some organizational tweaks, today chose Kazuo, or Kaz, Hirai to possibly succeed him at the helm of the iconic consumer electronics company.

Hirai, 50, rose up through the ranks in the music and video game businesses and has been the president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, which produces the successful PlayStation franchise as well as the video game business. Now, he's been tapped as the head of the entire consumer business, meaning not only video game consoles and titles, but TVs, Blu-ray players, notebooks, and more. … Read more