Sony CEO Howard Stringer: Content Will Give Company's Tablet Edge Over Apple

NEW YORK - Content is king, including when you compete with Apple for a share of the tablet market.

That was the message from Sony Corp. chairman and CEO Howard Stringer as he talked up his company's tablets and signaled that his company will take on Apple’s iPad by offering music and movies.

“Yes, yes, Apple makes an iPad, but does it make a movie?” Stringer said in a presentation at Berlin’s annual consumer electronics fair, Bloomberg News reported. “We will prove that it’s not who makes the tablet first...but who makes it better.”

Bloomberg quoted Alexander Peterc, an analyst at Exane BNP Paribas, as saying: “The tablet has to be significantly better than the iPad for consumers to want to buy it at that price point. Sony’s big advantage is that they have the content.”

The tablets that Stringer discussed will run on Google’s Android system and will integrate Sony’s music, video, gaming and digital book offerings.

According to Bloomberg, Stringer said the new devices could help the company move past challenges earlier this year, such as the earthquake in Japan and hacking attacks.

“In this year, we’ve been flooded, flattened, hacked and zinged,” Stringer said in Berlin. “But the summer of discontent is behind us.”