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Norio Ohga was the former president and chairman of Sony and the driving force in the invention and development of the CD.

Born in 1930 in Numazu, about 75 miles from Tokyo, Ohga spent most of his childhood studying music.

During his studies at the National University of Fine Arts and Music in Tokyo, the forthright Ohga caught the eye of powerful figures resulting in job offers from the chairman of Yamaha as well as from one of the founders of Sony.

In his life, Ohga tried to combine his love for music with a corporate career. He is said to have insisted that CDs store 74 minutes of sound so he could listen to the Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony without interruptions.

During his time at Sony, Ohga held positions of Head of Tape Recorders and Design, Head of Design Centre, Managing Director and Deputy President.

Ohga died on April 23 2011 at the age of 81.

We intended to comment on the seemingly pointless Qriocity streaming service recently launched by Sony in the UK but, well, the Guardian has  been kind enough to already do so in their technology blog.

While NMM always tries to remain impartial and write unbiased reviews, we can’t help but agree with the writer. Of course we are always happy to be proved wrong but the Qriocity (pronounced ‘curiosity’ we assume) service appears to be moving the industry backwards, not forwards.

The music industry desperately needs innovators to create new business models and methods of monetising content and that is unlikely to come from any of the Big Four. Anyway, you can decide for yourself. Please leave your comments below as we’d love to hear your views:

Sony’s Qriocity music service leaves Spotify, Pandora, Last.fm and we7 unruffled

Though it was touted as going head-to-head with Apple’s iTunes, Sony today did nothing of the sort. It didn’t even go toe-to-toe with Spotify.

The launch of its Music Unlimited streaming service in the UK and Ireland has all four major record labels on board – but it’s not giving anything away for free. Not a jot. Not even 30 seconds, as Sky’s recently mothballed service offered penniless passers-by.

Sony – with EMI, Universal and Warner breathing down its neck – is launching its cloud-based streaming service, called “Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity” with two subscription plans: “basic” and “premium”. Basic subscribers are charged £3.99 a month for a personalised, ad-free radio station, similar to Last.fm, and “unlimited forward skipping” of songs. (So, basically, just like Last.fm, but without the social aspect, and for more money.) Its premium version – at £9.99 a month, matching Spotify’s premium offers unlimited, ad-free access to more than 6m songs.

There’s no download option – users’ playlists and preferences are based in the cloud – meaning customers can stream songs from their computer to their emporium of shiny Sony hardware (Bravia TVs, PS3s and the like – which already can stream music). You can also sync your new digital catalogue with already-purchased music from iTunes.

Initially sold as Sony’s “direct challenge” to Apple’s dominance with iTunes, executives have been quick to distance Music Unlimited from that theorem. “We realised that if we were playing catch up with the same (iTunes) model, it would be difficult to appeal to users,” said Kazuo Hirai, Sony’s executive vice president and head of the company’s networked products and services division. “But over time, it needs to stand on its own,” he added.

Ultimately, Unlimited Music is an add-on for its home entertainment range – an attempted one-up on Microsoft and Samsung, which respectively have their own range of internet-connected hardware in the living room.

So let’s see, Spotify with ads for free, or Sony MUPBQ for £3.99 every month for ever and ever? So difficult. We asked Sony in what way this wasn’t an Olympic-quality bobsleigh run directly down towards the chequered flag of failure.

Here’s what Rob Lewis, executive chairman of Omnifone – which developed the service for Sony – said would buoy it up, with our thoughts. (The capitals are his.)

“It is much, much larger than Spotify. Sony’s service will be pre-loaded onto HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of devices every year, and automatically available to SIXTY MILLION existing Sony Network platform users. Only TEN MILLION Spotify accounts or so have been created to date, and less than a million subscribers. There is a huge untapped market out there.”

No doubt. Problem is, that untapped market is probably already getting music from somewhere. And it’s probably not paying £3.99 per month for it. And as to “much larger” than Spotify – well, not until you’ve got people signed up it’s not.

Read the full article from the Guardian here.

Guest

The news today that Sony would no longer be making its cassette Walkman filled me with nostalgia. I still remember myself and my younger brother getting our first Walkmans for Christmas roughly 10 years ago. I think the only cassette I had to play on it then was ‘The Simpsons’ album.

The creation of the Walkman was a real innovation as it allowed the user to listen to their own collection of music wherever and whenever they chose to.

The Walkman was born in 1979, when the Sony chairman asked his designers to make an item which would help him pass the time when on business trips, and allow him to listen to his favourite operas. Since its release the product has sold over 200 million units.

When I got my first Walkman back in the early 90s, it seemed to me – even then – to be an obsolete piece of technology. I still remember the painstaking effort involved in recording CDs onto tapes to then listen to them on my Walkman.

This, accompanied by the impending release of mp3 and minidisc technology, seemed to signify the beginning of the end for the Walkman. The introduction of the iPod was the final nail in the coffin.

It still makes me laugh thinking about how you had to rewind or fast-forward the cassette trying to find your favourite track on an album, and sometimes using a biro to rewind the tape to save battery life.

I have fond memories of listening to AC/DC’s Highway to Hell in secret well past bedtime on my £12 Walkman. I still listen to music 2-3 hours a day and without the invention of the Walkman, and subsequent CD, minidisc and MP3 player, I doubt this would be possible.

R.I.P Sony Walkman, it was a good 30 years.

By Matt Waddingham

The announcement came at a management strategy meeting in Tokyo on 19th November and the new service, temporarily dubbed “Sony Online Service” is planning to take on Apple’s iTunes store (who presently dominates with over 70% of the global digital music market).

The manner in which, Sony plans on undertake this is that the service plans to bridge premium content with social networking, allowing user generated content onto personal online accounts.

Having “digital lockers” and space to share videos and photos would bring a unique edge, and adding in the possibility of third-party apps in the mix it certainly would boost the opportunity for new mobile and camera products.

One thing to consider however is this isn’t the first time Sony has taken on iTunes. Sony’s first foray into digital content was the Sony Connect store, which was launched in 2005. The problem with Sony Connect was its creators assumed everyone would jump onto the closed system bandwagon. The system had the ATRAC DRM codec for its music content and we all know how that worked out. The store closed down after three years.

After that, there was the UMG-Sony collaboration of Total Music in 2007. Total Music was a subscription between device manufacturers and service providers (like Comes With Music), which users didn’t buy into and it shut down in February.

The problem is, it doesn’t look like Sony is attempting this even on its third shot, as one of the major reasons for creating the service is to support the hardware. A BusinessWeek article reported, “Analysts say that creating software to sell an array of online services and content is Sony’s best hope of improving its fortunes.”Sony has been too focused on hardware,” says Tokai Tokyo Research Center analyst Osamu Hirose. “It has to focus on networked products [and] delivering digital entertainment to consumers”.

According to the same article, executive vice-president for networked products and services Kazuo Hirai says the service would be based on Sony’s PlayStation Network, and hinted at the possibility of it starting off as a part of it; “There’s some debate as to whether all PlayStation Network users would migrate to the new service,” Hirai said. “We would target quite a few of them.”

via Sony Online Service: The Next iTunes Killer? By Cassandra Callais