Vodafone Japan Hires Latest Supposed Savior

Wireless

from the maybe-he-can-get-us-some-free-PSPs dept

Vodafone Japan’s desparate shotgun approach to pulling itself out of its long-running malaise continues with the hiring of a Sony exec as the company’s latest hope. Just to recap, Vodafone first stole away a top executive from rival NTT DoCoMo, and he got the axe a few months later. Selling phones from foreign manufacturers was supposed to give them a boost, and that didn’t work out either, so now the company’s trying to sell airtime wholesale and phones that look like cheese to get back in shape. The guy they’ve now poached from Sony is billed as “the man who knows consumer trends best in Sony” — but that might not be something to boast about, given Sony’s stuggles over the past few years and the big changes it’s now going through in an attempt to right itself. After all, Sony’s proven itself out of touch time and time again, particularly on DRM. Vodafone Japan’s now faced with the same problem, and it’s hard to see somebody coming from Sony as part of the solution.