“Sony CEO Howard Stringer faced harsh criticism of his leadership after the consumer electronics conglomerate revealed hackers may have stolen the data of another 25 million accounts in a second massive security breach,” Isabel Reynolds and Liana B. Baker report for Reuters. “Also under growing pressure was Kazuo Hirai, the likely successor to Stringer and who had spearheaded the development of Sony’s networked businesses until March, when he was promoted to the number 2 position as executive deputy president.”
“Sony’s latest revelation came just a day after it had announced measures to avert another cyberattack like that which hit its PlayStation Network two weeks ago,” Reynolds and Baker report. “The breach may also have led to the theft of 10,700 direct debit records from customers in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain and 12,700 non-U.S. credit or debit card numbers, it said.”
Reynolds and Baker report, “Welsh-born Stringer, a former TV producer who was knighted in 2000, has not commented on the security breach, leaving Hirai to lead a news conference and apology on Sunday. Stringer in March committed to stay in his role for the current year at least.”
“Hirai may not escape the fiasco unscathed, said another fund manager, who sold Sony shares last year and was not authorised to talk publicly about the company,” Reynolds and Baker report. “‘The leadership of Sony is not in a good place right now, which could lead to Stringer stepping down and may sabotage Hirai’s chances of succeeding as the CEO,’ said the Taipei-based fund manager.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: What we wrote two years ago: In our best Donald Trump voices, “Howard, you’re fired.” Isn’t a “turnaround plan” supposed to show some signs of, you know, turning something around; especially since Sony’s Stringer announced his plan well over 3 years ago? Make that “well over 5 years ago” now.
Related article:
Sony admits utter PSN failure: Your personal data has been stolen – April 26, 2011
No wonder Sony’s beleaguered: CEO Stringer says ‘Apple’s iTunes Store uses proprietary FairPlay DRM’ – May 14, 2009
Sony CEO Stringer calls Apple CEO Steve Jobs ‘greedy’ – July 19, 2007
Sony board votes Howard Stringer company’s first non-Japanese CEO – March 7, 2005
Are they using Windows servers?
No, they are using that cartoon guy in the overalls and the software is called “Mario Delivers!” followed by some quirky music…
String up Stringer, and hari-kari, or, rather, Harai-kari, for that other cat…
Don’t laugh. Sony’s rise to glory resulted from having a brilliant leader who drove the company to develop best-in-class products. The company lost him and began a painful decline. Sound familiar? Regardless of the talented people at Apple, the company will have a challenge remainig Great after Steve Jobs steps down.
Sony’s decline should be a lesson to all companies, but far too many aren’t paying attention. Don’t. Build. Crapware. Sony went from world-class TVs to mid- and low-end ore-China electronics that should never have been let out of Malaysia. My first CD player was a Sony, and it failed prematurely. I had a Sony receiver and it needed a warranty repair and featured buttons that would pop off. I did recently buy a Sony A/V receiver and it works great, but I figured that for $5 (at a Goodwill thrift shop) I would take the risk.
“Are they using Windows servers?”
This is a highly legitimate question which so far I have not seen answered.
What the F were they thinking putting a white guy as the head of Sony?
“Are they using Windows servers?”
I think ‘Winblows servers’ would be a VERY safe bet.
the only thing this means is the xbox 720 will kill the PS4.
I wonder how deep this really goes. If the network is offline and still got hacked are they hacking through sony itself and not the actual network? its a possibility.
If thats the case, could they also stumble across future development plans such as PSP2 or PS4? Selling plans/Ideas to the open market killing sonys chance for enhancement in the future potentially putting sonys life at risk. Yeah this all speculation and “What ifs” but its really got me thinking how much worse this can get really fast.
“Welsh-born Stringer, a former TV producer who was knighted in 2000,
what a coincidence, thats just about the time sony started sucking.