Can Sony Copy Apple's Template for Success?

By Anders Bylund – May 15, 2013 at 6:00PM

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Activist investor Dan Loeb wants Sony to rip pages out of Apple and Google's playbooks.

Activist investor Dan Loeb of hedge fund Third Point Ventures has made a name for himself in forced shake-ups. In 2011, he forced a management makeover in Yahoo!, where he now serves on the board of directors. This year, he's made headlines and profits in betting on health shake distributor Herbalife when fellow fund manager Bill Ackman wanted to flush it down the drain.

Now, Loeb wants to shake up Sony (SONY -0.71%) in the mold of a pure electronics specialist, leaving non-core operations like insurance, movies, and music sales by the wayside. Loeb's ideal Sony model would be a lot closer to Apple (AAPL -1.22%) than it is today, which is ironic since Steve Jobs quoted Sony as an inspiration for his once-in-a-lifetime turnaround of Apple. It's also a step toward Google's streamlining under CEO Larry Page, with "more wood behind fewer arrows."

In this video, Fool contributor Anders Bylund examines what's right about Loeb's idea, and why it still might not work.

Fool contributor Anders Bylund owns shares of Google, but he holds no other position in any company mentioned. Check out Anders' bio and holdings or follow him on Twitter and Google+.

The Motley Fool recommends Apple and Google. The Motley Fool owns shares of Apple and Google and has the following options: long Jan 2014 $50 calls on Herbalife. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.