Thank you for confirming the timeline.
Sony failed to explain why they pulled the movie originally. No one can blame Obama given how poorly Sony put out their original press release with no mention of the theaters.That was only explained in the subsequent CNN interview.
Obama also deserves credit for making it clear that NK is not going to get away with what they did to Sony.
Hello?! Sony, a big multi billion dollar corporation was attacked viciously by state sponsored cyber terrorists. The hackers got into all of Sony's systems and basically took everything it had online, and burned the house down. This has never happened to this extent before. They were totally paralyzed. Their main concern at that point was to ensure the survival and continuation of their day to day normal business transactions. They couldn't even send out emails, do you know what that means?
Sony only pulled the movie after the threat by the hackers which caused the theaters to pull out. So now they are looking for different vendors, and as you can see, nobody has stepped up. Obama should have kept impartial and showed support for Sony, instead of pointing his finger at the victims, which happened to be his close allies.
It is not certain that Sony will survive this, or what the extent of the actual damage is, since many Sony employees are now considering suing Sony for negligence in protecting their privacy.