
Sony owns movie and music companies and also markets the hardware on which to enjoy movies and music, not to mention videogames. I can still recall the difficulty in getting Sony Music to come to the table with Sony Walkman (remember Walkman?). These silos where invisible to most until Apple launched iPod and iTunes, a perfect combination of hardware and content. Game. Set. Match.
That's why I was very excited to hear last week's announcement that Sony Pictures will offer

This test, if successful, has major implications for how movies will be distributed in the future and may do to video distribution what iTunes did to music distribution.
But I'm equally interested in the implications for the Sony brand. I think we're about to see the brand rediscover its mojo.