Norio Ohga, key to Sony's audio legacy, dies at 81

23.04.2011
Norio Ohga, one of the handful of men who shaped Sony into the global consumer electronics giant that it is today, died on Saturday morning in Tokyo at the age of 81, Sony said.

Ohga began working as an advisor for Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo, as Sony was originally called, in 1953 when the company was just seven years old. With his classical music training, Ohga consulted on development of the company's first audio products.

In 1959 he traveled to the U.S. on a business trip with Sony founder Akio Morita. It was during that trip that Morita persuaded Ohga to join Sony full-time, telling him, "You were born to be a businessman."

Ohga's love of music and keen ear for quality audio would define his career and play a key role in Sony's establishment as a leading name in the audio industry.

After joining the company, he headed its tape recorder division and it was Ohga's desire to listen to music while he walked -- so the story goes -- that led to engineers developing the Walkman.

But perhaps Ohga's biggest contribution to Sony came in 1980, when he led a team exploring technologies to replace analog audio cassettes. The team, working with Philips, developed the Compact Disc and changed the way the world enjoyed pre-recorded music.