I was working in planning for Sony back when the first Walkman was put
on the market about 20 years ago, and I had the good fortune to be there
as this idea was hatched and brought to fruition. I remember when Ibuka
(Masaru) brought the first prototype to Morita (Akio) and how pleased
Morita was at the sound quality. I remember the way Morita puckered his
lips with intensity at product planning meetings. And I remember all of
the meetings that were held to design the product, to plan the marketing,
and to make sure production went smoothly. Indeed, I even remember the
bean counters who insisted that this crazy idea would never fly and that
some way had to be found to rein Morita and Ibuka in before they ruined
the company with their foolishness.
  
Even though this project had highest-level backing, the Sony culture was
that there was never enough money to do everything marketing wanted to
do. As a result, we had to rely primarily on free or nearly free
publicity to get it started, and I remember how groups of us went out
wearing the most outlandish headphones to get attention. In fact, the
Walkman's big break came not from advertising clout but when a popular
CBS-Sony artist plugged it on television. It was product quality and
personal enthusiasm that made the difference. Not money.
  
Maeda Noboru
Kochi University of Technology