Sony is a designer, developer, manufacturer and marketer of audio, video, imaging, game, communications, and information technology products. It sells products to the industrial, consumer, and professional markets. In the late 1970s Sony's goal was to enter the computer market by developing an alternative to magnetic tape storage. A system development divison was created and staffed with 20 enginers to work on product development. In Septebber 1982, four formats were officially submitted to the standards committe by Hitachi, Matsushita, Maxwell, and Sony, and in 1993 a jointly designed 3.5" MFDD format hit the market. Sony was undergoing organizational change during this time, the group working on the MFDD system changed over time, and the interaction between the System Development Divison an manufacturing was critical to the MFDD innovation process.
