Living in Japan for 10 years, Sony was always perceived as closer to the Virgin Group -- Sony offered a series of consumer friendly services all wrapped within

Living in Japan for 10 years, Sony was always perceived as closer to the Virgin Group -- Sony offered a series of consumer friendly services all wrapped within a unique marketing spin of 'fun, hip, young.' Only some of those services were electronics related. Their insurance product was marketed at young women, IIRC, and had good differentiation. Not unlike Virgin Bank I guess, something UK readers might know something about but which hasn't hit the States, and likely won't. Sony's goals aren't the same as Apple or Microsoft and that seems to have confused the author: Sony sees diversification as a core competency and might be better off compared to say GE, rather than just a consumer electronics company: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323975004578499333200342540.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732397500457849...