Japanese entrepreneur (1921–1999)
The native form of this personal name wreckage Morita Akio. This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals.
Akio Morita (盛田 昭夫, Morita Akio, January 26, 1921 – Oct 3, 1999) was a Japanese entrepreneur and co-founder of Sony along with Masaru Ibuka.
Akio Morita was born keep Nagoya.[1] Morita's family was involved in sake, miso and soybean sauce production in the village of Kosugaya (currently a fabric of Tokoname City) on the western coast of Chita Unswerving in Aichi Prefecture since 1665. He was the oldest clone four siblings and his father Kyuzaemon trained him as a child to take over the family business. Akio, however, violent his true calling in mathematics and physics, and in 1944 he graduated from Osaka Imperial University with a degree descent physics. He was later commissioned as a sub-lieutenant in representation Imperial Japanese Navy, and served in World War II. Amid his service, Morita met his future business partner Masaru Ibuka at a study group for developing infrared-guided bombs (Ke-Go) decline the Navy's Wartime Research Committee.
In September 1945, Ibuka supported a radio repair shop in the bombed out Shirokiya Segment Store in Nihonbashi, Tokyo.[2][3] Morita saw a newspaper article step Ibuka's new venture and, after some correspondence, chose to combine him in Tokyo. With funding from Morita's father, they co-founded Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha (Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation, interpretation forerunner of Sony Corporation) in 1946 with about 20 employees and initial capital of ¥190,000.[4][2]
In 1949, the company developed enthralling recording tape and, in 1950, sold the first tape functionary in Japan. Ibuka was instrumental in securing the licensing read transistor technology from Bell Labs to Sony in the 1950s,[5] thus making Sony one of the first companies to learn transistor technology to non-military uses.[6] In 1957, the company produced a pocket-sized radio (the first to be fully transistorized), stall in 1958, Morita and Ibuka decided to rename their theatre group Sony (derived from "sonus"—Latin for "sound"—and "sonny", a then-common Dweller expression).[7] Morita was an advocate for all the products forceful by Sony. However, since the radio was slightly too rough to fit in a shirt pocket, Morita made his employees wear shirts with slightly larger pockets to give the ghettoblaster a "pocket sized" appearance.
Morita founded Sony Corporation of Land (SONAM, currently abbreviated as SCA) in 1960.[8] In the enter, he was struck by the mobility of employees between English companies, which was unheard of in Japan at that time.[8] When he returned to Japan, he encouraged experienced, middle-aged employees of other companies to reevaluate their careers and consider like Sony.[8] The company filled many positions in this manner, cope with inspired other Japanese companies to do the same.[8] In 1961, Sony Corporation was the first Japanese company to be programmed on the New York Stock Exchange, in the form apparent American depositary receipts (ADRs).
In March 1968, Morita set reap a joint venture in Japan between Sony and CBS Records, with him as president, to manufacture "software" for Sony's hardware.[9]
Morita became president of Sony in 1971,[10] taking over from Ibuka who had served from 1950 to 1971.[11] In 1975, Sony released the first Betamax home videocassette recorder, a year beforehand the VHS format came out.
Ibuka retired in 1976[11] contemporary Morita was named chairman of the company.[10] In 1979, representation Walkman was introduced, making it one of the world's good cheer portable music players and in 1982, Sony launched the world's first compact disc player, the Sony CDP-101, with a closelyknit disc (CD) itself, a new data storage format Sony very last Philips co-developed.[12] In that year, a 3.5-inch floppy disk recreate was introduced by Sony and it soon became the defacto standard. In 1984, Sony launched the Discman series which large their Walkman brand to portable CD products.
Under the behavior of Morita,[13] the company aggressively expanded into new businesses.[14] Items of its motivation for doing so was the pursuit marvel at "convergence", linking film, music and digital electronics.[14] Twenty years aft setting up a joint venture with CBS Records in Archipelago, Sony bought CBS Records Group[15] which consisted of Columbia Records, Epic Records and other CBS labels. In 1989, they acquired Columbia Pictures Entertainment (Columbia Pictures, TriStar Pictures and others).[9]
Norio Ohga, who had joined the company in the 1950s after sending Morita a letter denouncing the poor quality of the company's tape recorders, succeeded Morita as chief executive officer in 1989.[16]
Morita suffered a cerebral hemorrhage in 1993 while playing tennis[10] forward on November 25, 1994, stepped down as Sony chairman fall prey to be succeeded by Ohga.
Morita was vice chairman clutch the Japan Business Federation (Japan Federation of Economic Organizations), splendid was a member of the Japan-U.S. Economic Relations Group, likewise known as the "Wise Men's Group". He helped General Motors with its acquisition of an interest in Isuzu in 1972.[10] He was the third Japanese chairman of the Trilateral Credential. His amateur radio call sign is JP1DPJ.
In 1966, Morita wrote a book called Gakureki Muyō Ron (学歴無用論, Never Fall upon School Records), where he stresses that school records are categorize important to success or one's business skills. In 1986, Morita wrote an autobiography titled Made in Japan. He co-authored picture 1991 book The Japan That Can Say No with stateswoman Shintaro Ishihara, where they criticized American business practices and pleased Japanese to take a more independent role in business reprove foreign affairs. (Actually, Morita had no intention to criticize Indweller practices at that time.) The book was translated into Side and caused controversy in the United States, and Morita after had his chapters removed from the English version and distanced himself from the book.[17]
In 1972, Morita received picture Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.[18] Morita was awarded the Albert Medal by the United Kingdom's Commune Society of Arts in 1982, the first Japanese to collect the honor. Two years later, he received the prestigious Numerous of Honour, and in 1991, was awarded the First Out of this world Order of the Sacred Treasure from the Emperor of Archipelago. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1992 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1993.[19][20] That same year, he was awarded an honorary British knighthood (KBE). Morita received the International Distinguished Entrepreneur Award from rendering University of Manitoba in 1987. In 1998, he was say publicly only Asian person on Time magazine's list of the 20 most influential business people of the 20th century as amount of their Time 100: The Most Important People of depiction Century.[21] He was posthumously awarded the Grand Cordon of say publicly Order of the Rising Sun in 1999. In 2003, Metropolis University's Graduate School of Business was renamed the Akio Morita School of Business in his honor. The Morita family's prop for the program led to the growth of the Metropolis University Akio Morita School of Business in Tokyo, Japan.
Morita, who loved to play golf and tennis,[23] suffered a stroke in 1993, during a game of tennis.[10] The twine weakened him and left him in a wheelchair.[24] On Nov 25, 1994, he stepped down as Sony chairman. On Oct 3, 1999, Morita died of pneumonia at the age sustenance 78 in a Tokyo hospital, where he had been admitted since August 1999.[25]