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Sony
索尼
Back in Japanese hands
管理權重回日本人手里
Kazuo Hirai's new strategy gives Sony's business a blurry future
平井一夫的新策略讓索尼的商業未來變得模糊
IT IS too much to expect one man single-handedly to rescue Sony, the Japanese firm which formerly made world-beating electronic products but is now almost as well-known for making losses.
索尼，這間曾經制造過世界一流電子產品的日本公司，但現在，制造虧損的能力幾乎同樣出名。期望有人能用一己之力拯救索尼，但這期望過高了。
Even so, Kazuo Hirai, who unveiled his outlook for the company on April 12th less than a fortnight after taking its management back into Japanese hands, has had a tumultuous start。
即使這樣，平井一夫還是在困難中啟航。在4月12日，距離公司的管理大權回到日本人的手里才兩周不到，他就公布了對于公司前途的展望。
On April 10th the company predicted it would lose 520 billion yen in the fiscal year that ended on March 31st, the biggest loss in its 65-year history.
4月10號，公司預計，截止到3月31號為止，公司的年度財政將虧損5200億日元，是索尼65年來最大的虧損。
The new forecast, twice as bad as had been expected as recently as February, clobbered its shares, which have fallen by 40% in a year.
這份最新財政預測是最近在二月所預測的虧損的兩倍，這使其股價繼一年內跌了40%后，再次遭受重挫。
The increased losses stemmed largely from an accounting charge:
不斷增加的虧損大部分來源于一項會計費用：
in the company's fourth consecutive year of red ink, Sony decided it could no longer carry tax losses as an asset.
在公司連續四年虧損后，索尼決定不再將稅收損失作為一項資產。
The news hit me hard, Mr Hirai admitted.
平井先生承認，這消息打擊了我。
But paper losses aside, the underlying electronics business is also bleeding money.
但除去賬面的損失，基礎的電子業務也是出血的錢。
Mr Hirai laid out aggressive targets to improve performance, though he offered few concrete ideas on how to achieve them.
平井先生設定了具有挑戰性的目標去提升業績，可是他在怎樣完成這些目標上幾乎沒有提出什么新的具體想法。
Interestingly, he named three products as core to Sony:
有趣的是，他指定三項產品作為索尼的核心部分：
digital imaging, including cameras; gaming; and mobile phones.
包括照相機在內的數字圖像；游戲以及移動電話。
Conspicuous by their absence were televisions.
引人注目的是他們在電視機業務上的缺失。
They are not just a problem for Sony, which has lost money on the business for eight years.
索尼已經在電視機業務持續虧損了8年，電視機業務已經不僅是索尼的問題了。
Sharp and Panasonic, its two main Japanese rivals, are also likely to lose money on TVs this year, as well as on other parts of their electronic businesses.
索尼在日本的兩個主要競爭對手，夏普跟松下，今年也很可能在電視業務上遭受虧損，它們其他的電子業務也一樣遭受虧損。
What makes televisions such a millstone for these firms is that none has the guts to exit the business completely;
讓電視機業務成為這些公司的一個沉重負擔的原因是，沒有一間公司有勇氣完全退出此業務，
nor are they aggressively revamping it.
也沒有人對此業務進行積極的改進。
Instead they lean towards what Yoshiharu Izumi of J.P. Morgan, a securities firm, calls managed decline.
相反，他們傾向于接受證劵公司摩根大通Yoshiharu Izumi所形容的可控的衰退。
Mr Hirai had already announced that Sony's TV production goal would be halved, from 40m units to 20m.
平井先生已經宣布索尼電視機目標產量將會減半，從4千萬臺減到2千萬臺。
There was little to suggest he has any higher hope for TVs than to turn a profit in the year ending March 2014.
并沒有跡象表明，他對已經在2014年3月末實現轉虧為盈的電視機業務有更高的期望。
However, he left open the possibility of alliances with other Japanese television makers:
盡管如此，他仍保持著和其他的日本電視機制造商聯合一起的可能性，因為自從上個月夏普將部分業務賣給了蘋果的主要供應商
talk of such co-operation has grown since Sharp was part-sold to Taiwan's Hon Hai, Apple's main supplier, last month.
臺灣的鴻海集團后，對類似的合作談論得越來越多。
Analysts hope that, being Japanese, Mr Hirai will have more success than his Welsh-born predecessor, Sir Howard Stringer, in uniting Sony's 168,000 employees behind a call for reform.
分析家希望，作為日本人的平井先生能比他威爾斯籍的前任CEO霍華德.斯仃格，在團結索尼公司168,000雇員呼吁改革上能取得更大的成功。
But apart from repeating Sony will change any number of times in his opening presentation, there was not much evidence of new thinking.
但除了在他的開場白上多次重復索尼將會改變外，并沒有更多的證據證明他有新的思路。
He mentioned 10,000 job cuts, but at least 3,000 of these will be accounted for by spinning off companies.
他提及裁員10,000人，但其中至少3000是算進被拆分的子公司。
To those worried about Sony's decline, it is whole divisions, not jobs, that need to be cut, in order to focus on what the company does best. Sadly, that message did not come through.
對于那些擔心索尼衰落的人來說，索尼為了集中發展能使公司變得更好的業務上，需要裁掉的是整個虧損業務而不是員工。但令人遺憾的是，這信息并沒有被傳達。
