Sony announced a major restructuring today. This is a vital step forward for the company, which has tried for years to bring coherence and unified direction across its various technology, device, media and service interest groups. Bringing all connected devices - Playstation, mobile and Vaio - under one group - Networked Products and Services - shows the company understands the importance of online capabilities across all its products and services. Existing TV and video products remain in a new Consumer Products Group. The challenge for Sony will be to develop a unified technology and product strategy across these various entities, and that will not be easy for groups that, in spite of progress in recent years, still do not work well together. Sony is not going as far as Cisco's familiar "the network is the platform" theme, but the development of PlayStation Network is clearly going to underpin a lot of Sony's developments across many of its product lines. Overall this has to be seen as a positive development at a time when the traditional consumer electronics market is in decline. If Sony executes successfuly and truly unifies behind a common objective, it will go a long way towards retaining the leadership position it has held for so many years. Twitter: twitter.com/dmercer15