Not that long ago, Sony was the one to beat when it came to personal electronics. After all, the legendary Japanese company not only invented the Walkman portable tape player - which launched the portable music industry - but pioneered the compact disc and the DVD as well and helped to shape the digital video revolution.

Sony's name became synonymous with the term "market leader", whether you were talking about televisions, video cameras, CD players or almost any other form of personal electronics.

Unfortunately for Sony, however - and its shareholders - those days are a thing of the past. The company failed to catch the digital music wave that was spawned by the development of MP3 players and effectively handed the market over to Apple and competitors such as Rio.

Likewise, the arrival of low-cost flat-panel televisions seemed to take Sony by surprise. The company, whose Trinitron TVs were the market leader, failed to take advantage of that opportunity as well, and let Sharp, Samsung and Matsushita (which makes Panasonic) take the lead.

Sony bought a Hollywood movie studio to try to diversify its revenue base but had mixed results.

A move into the video game market with the PlayStation was considerably more successful, as Sony commandeered a large proportion of the market created by Nintendo and became the leader. But video games alone can't carry a company of Sony's size.

In a dramatic move designed to show its commitment to change, the Sony board of directors recently appointed Howard Stringer, a Welsh-born former TV reporter and CBS executive, to be its chairman and chief executive - the first non-Japanese CEO the company has had in its 50-year history.

Stringer just announced his plan to turn the electronics giant around, a scheme that involves 10,000 layoffs out of a total workforce of about 150,000, the closure of 11 plants and the shuttering of several business units.

If the new Sony CEO was hoping for a resounding vote of confidence from the stock market, however, he didn't get one. Sony's shares dropped by more than 5.5 per cent on fairly heavy volume the day the news was announced. At its current level of about US$34 ($49), the stock is about 20 per cent lower than it was earlier this year. In 2000, Sony's stock was selling for more than US$100.

Several analysts who follow the company said that they found the plan underwhelming and that simply cutting costs isn't going to return Sony to strength.

Standard & Poor's analyst John Yang told Reuters that he's "still not convinced that Sony can stir growth. They have to come up with something nobody can imitate but consumers will buy. But they haven't given any details how they plan to do that."