Sony chief executive Howard Stringer highlighted the challenges convergence poses to his company in his keynote presentation at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

"Content and technology are strange bedfellows," he said. "We are joined together. Sometimes we misunderstand each other. But isn't that after all the definition of marriage?"

Stringer challenged the notion that selling hardware and owning content poses a challenge for the company, which owns record labels and a movie studio in addition to its consumer electronics business. 

The issue was brought to the forefront last December when Sony BMG created a PR nightmare by using anti-piracy technology on its music CDs that turned out to pose a significant security risk.

"Sony BMG did not intend to punish the consumer," Stringer said as he apologised for the debacle.

Highlighting the need to combine technology with content, Sony lined up newly launched products such as the new Sony Reader, a portable e-book reader. Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code will be one of the first books to be available on the Reader when it is launched later this spring.