Sony's slow but sure descent is also about Japanese companies' obsession with doing things their way, even if it's the wrong way.

I lived in Japan during the peak of its technological and manufacturing heyday -- from 1983 till 1993. The final eight years in Tokyo. Not only did I visit scores of Japanese electronics and computer companies as a journalist (and analyst) but I was also irresistibly drawn to (read: I spent way too much time in) Akihabara -- Japan's electronics retail Mecca at the time.

The reason for the success of companies like Sony and Panasonic (National brand in Japan) was obvious. They not only designed popular products but were also very good at manufacturing them. Not unlike the U.S. in its industrial heyday.

But the seeds of Japan's technological-industrial undoing were there to see too:

