By Kenji Hall

Chairman and CEO of Japan's Sony Corporation Howard Stringer smiles during a press conference at the headquarters in Tokyo on November 19, 2009. Toru Yamanaka/AFP/Getty Images

Sony (SNE) is taking a page from Apple's playbook (AAPL). On Nov. 19, Sony said it plans to launch an online store selling music, movies, and books as well as other downloadable applications for mobile products. Sony's top executives didn't specify when the Internet store, tentatively called Sony Online Service, would go live or what it would look like. But the online storefront, announced at a management strategy meeting in Tokyo, is likely to bear some similarities to Apple's iTunes store and would be Sony's most ambitious attempt to link its products to its own...