Sony to Cut 10,000 Jobs

Sony plans to cut 10,000 jobs, or about 6 percent of its global workforce, Nikkei reports.

The layoffs will most likely happen in Sony’s chemicals and small and midsize LCD operations, Nikkei claims, but it’s not clear whether Sony will cut its workforce in Japan or overseas.

The move comes after a dismal yearly forecast and a change of leadership, with former executive deputy president Kazuo Hirai replacing Howard Stringer as president and CEO.

According to Nikkei‘s sources, Sony might also request that its seven executive directors — including Stringer — return their yearly bonuses.

Sony hasn’t officially confirmed the report, but Hirai is set to brief the company’s business plan on Thursday, April 12.

As of March 2012, Sony globally employes 168,200 people.

News by Mashable

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EBook: The Japanese Rakuten buys Canadian Kobo

kobo

AFP - The manager of the largest Japanese online shopping mall, Rakuten, announced Wednesday the acquisition for $ 315 million (228 million) of Canadian society Kobo reading lights that provides electronic and digital books to sites of booksellers. Rakuten, which just opened in Japan's own virtual library "Raboo" ready, subject to regulatory approvals, to purchase and pay in cash 100% stake in Kobo, to expand its international presence considered promising in this area.

This acquisition marks a new stage for Rakuten, which extends its branches abroad. Kobo is a number of digital books in Canada. The company offers reading terminals enriched with attractive features (links to social networking sites Twitter and Facebook) and boasts a catalog of 2.5 million book titles, mainly in English. Founded in 2009 by Canadian bookseller Indigo, Kobo presents itself as one of the few companies in the sector to be able to resist the giant Amazon, through its partnerships with various distributors in the world, including Fnac in France.

For the founder and CEO of Rakuten, Hiroshi Mikitani, "Kobo provides reading experiences with the most community integration of social media, while Rakuten Kobo offers unique opportunities to grow." "This transaction will greatly strengthen our position in existing markets and will allow us to diversify rapidly in other countries and other types of e-commerce", for its part welcomed the Director General of Kobo, Michael Serbin , said in a statement released in North America. The French retailer Fnac cultural products has recently announced the launch of Kobo reading lights in France, which are already offered by foreign chains Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Target, Future Shop, WHSmith, and Collins Booksellers Whitcoulls?

Through its subsidiaries in various countries, claims to offer Kobo Rakuten an even broader international presence in Germany, Brazil, Taiwan, China, Thailand, Indonesia, and of course, in Japan, where its service Raboo (short Book of Rakuten) is already compatible with a special reading light, and soon Panasonic models with Sony Reader. Rakuten aims to build on its reputation and experience in selling products and services via the Internet and adapt its proven very lucrative for content immaterial. For the first nine months of fiscal 2011, Rakuten has certainly deplored a loss, but this disappointment is due to an exceptional charge related to the restructuring of a business credit card, while the purely operational it posted record sales and profits.

The group, which takes advantage of the historical force of the Japanese currency, launched a major offensive abroad where he buys companies with a vengeance. He announced the acquisition in September, to 25 million pounds (29 million), the British company that manages Play Holdings one of the most important platforms for electronic commerce in Britain. In July, Rakuten had put his hand on the mall Tradoria, one of the largest in Germany, a year after taking the French company.

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Sony buys Ericsson out of mobile phone venture

Sony Ericsson

(Reuters) - Sony Corp is to take over the Sony Ericsson mobile phone joint venture for 1.05 billion euros ($1.45 billion), as it seeks to catch up with smartphone and tablet makers Apple and Samsung.

The deal to buy out its Swedish partner gives Sony ownership of certain handset patents held by Ericsson and will enable it to integrate the joint venture's output with its own range of products and content.

"Its the beginning of something which I think is quite magical," said Sony's chairman and chief Executive Sir Howard Stringer.

"We can more rapidly and more widely offer consumers smartphones, laptops, tablets and televisions that seamlessly connect with one another and open up new worlds of online entertainment."

Until now Sony's tablets, games and other consumer electronics devices have been kept separate from the phones sold and created by Sony Ericsson.

"Sony is looking to do the same as Apple and meet user's demands through linking various devices with similar interfaces and operating systems," said analyst Nobuo Kurahashi of Mizuho Investors' Securities in Tokyo.

"Since television sales are set to fall smartphones look to become more important products for Sony since their sales are rising globally and they will probably become the main device people use to connect to the Internet."

Smartphone sales have been surging since Apple launched its first iPhone in 2007 and despite a slowdown in the overall consumer electronics market the strong demand for smartphones is expected to continue.

The takeover of Sony Ericsson by the Japanese group had long been talked of, and a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters this month that a deal was in the offing.

"Sony now has all the components to compete with Samsung and Apple. The big question now is ... can it execute ?," said Pete Cunningham of industry consultancy Canalys.

"Based on history I am skeptical but I would not say it cannot be done," he added.

Founded in 2001, Sony Ericsson last year took around 2 percent of the global cellphone market with sales of 6.3 billion euros and employs some 7,500 people. Initially it thrived with an array of camera and music phones but then lost out in the smartphone race.

"Sony had to make this deal as it had run out of options, but integration challenges could prove to be a major hurdle," said Ben Wood, head of research at London-based mobile consultancy CCS Insight.

"As a major consumer electronics player lack of mobile assets had become a liability for Sony, particularly when compared with Samsung, whose telecommunication business creates nearly half of its profits," he said.

Ericsson said the deal provides Sony with a broad intellectual property cross-licensing agreement covering all the Japanese company's products and services as well as ownership of "five essential patent families relating to wireless handset technology."

"The only value Ericsson added to the venture was patents," said Cunningham.

However, in comparison Nokia, the world's largest cellphone vendor by volume, controls some 10,000 patent families.

Shares in Ericsson, whose main strength lies in its wireless network equipment business, were up 5 percent at 70 crowns by 1024 GMT.

($1=0.724 euros)