They should start by putting a Vevo app & Walkman app on the PS4.
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Sony reportedly in talks to sell PC ops (Vaio PC business), shares jump
- Thread starter Aquamarine
- Start date
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Read my earlier post in this thread.
RockTurtle
Member
sell spiderman back to marvel for 2 billion.
viao laptops almost had apple product sales mechanics of trying to sell premium prices on name alone (unfortunately for sony they aren't Apple and their name doesn't ring BUY ME like before).
viao laptops almost had apple product sales mechanics of trying to sell premium prices on name alone (unfortunately for sony they aren't Apple and their name doesn't ring BUY ME like before).
Wiktor
Member
No idea, but Acer could use Vaio brand, because they've have this reputation of garbage ultra cheap laptops. They don't do only those anymore and had plenty of high end laptops recently, but the opinion is still stuck.
Anyway, while I never was a fan of Vaios, I still think X505 remains one of the most beautiful laptops ever made
THe first time I saw it in person it was like science-fiction.
D
Deleted member 22576
Unconfirmed Member
The Vaio line has given me so many "OMG this is the future" goosebumps in my life.
Bow down to the bible.
They just had a way with those powerbuttons, man.
Stamina or Speed?
Bow down to the bible.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
Don't see anything on their English site, but Sony has a comment on the Japanese page:
http://www.sony.co.jp/SonyInfo/News/Press/201402/14-0205/
It says that while there have been reports that Sony will establish a new company with JIP, Sony has yet to announce anything official. They also say that they continue to explore a variety of options for their PC business, but have nothing further to comment at this time.
http://www.sony.co.jp/SonyInfo/News/Press/201402/14-0205/
It says that while there have been reports that Sony will establish a new company with JIP, Sony has yet to announce anything official. They also say that they continue to explore a variety of options for their PC business, but have nothing further to comment at this time.
Unknown Soldier
Member
I wonder if anybody else will put IPS screens in consumer-class laptops. My VAIO S15 is one of the few laptops on Earth in the sub-$1k price range blessed with a 15" 1080p IPS panel.
Sad news. Sony is a design powerhouse and if they exit the PC market, we'll be stuck with generic me-too designs or atrociously bad ideas. I don't think anything looked as good as a Vaio before Apple came back.
Having said that, I'm extremely disappointed by the Vaio Pro 13" I bought. Great design but atrocious internals and unstable software. I cry a little inside everything time it wakes up from sleep for no apparent reason.
Sony is so good at designing good looking hardware though, they should spin-off a new division that offers design services.
Having said that, I'm extremely disappointed by the Vaio Pro 13" I bought. Great design but atrocious internals and unstable software. I cry a little inside everything time it wakes up from sleep for no apparent reason.
Sony is so good at designing good looking hardware though, they should spin-off a new division that offers design services.
xValentine
Member
about time.
UltraGunner
Banned
Now all they need to do is stop making 1080p TVs and they'll be on the path to recovery.
Basileus777
Member
Spiderman is worth more than that.
Did this get posted already?
http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/5/5380832/sony-vaio-apple-os-x-steve-jobs-meeting-report
Crazy.
http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/5/5380832/sony-vaio-apple-os-x-steve-jobs-meeting-report
Crazy.
zomgbbqftw
Banned
For people who think Sony should stay in these loss making markets and try and turn their units around I would point them towards Panasonic, they enacted real and proper reforms by cutting out unprofitable divisions and refocussing towards B2B products and they have returned to operating profitability and turned a net loss of ca. 400bn yen into a 100bn net profit forecast (which the have a good chance of beating). With the sale and loss made on the Vaio division, Sony will post a net loss in the region of 40bn yen, a reversal from a net profit of 35bn last year and a forecast of 45bn.
With the sale of the Vaio division, the next logical move is the sale of the TV division or closing down of manufacturing and refocussing it completely towards 4K and leaving low margin 1080p products behind completely.
Sony's presence in electronics should be limited to design, engineering and supply chain management. Manufacturing of components and assembly should be completely outsourced. The profitable smartphone and gaming divisions use this model to great effect. There is absolutely no reason for Sony to make Wintel laptops, it is a low margin market with little to no fringe benefits for the company because of standardised software configurations. With smartphones and gaming products Sony has a the opportunity to push their own ecosystem because they are still a somewhat walled garden and ship with fully customised software. Imaging makes sense because they are the world leader in sensor design and production, plus prosumer cameras have very nice margins. What needs to speed up is their transition away from cheap digital compacts to premium RX cameras, and speeding up their lens releases for ILCE cameras.
Really though, TVs are the area that kills them, at last count there were 45-55k people employed within Sony working directly or indirectly on TVs, most of them in manufacturing and assembly. Shedding these positions either by selling the division or cutting out manufacturing and assembly would yield a significantly lower fixed cost base allowing for higher margins and profitability. FWIW, our calculation made early in 2012 said Sony had baseline net profitability of just 30bn yen in a given year, which is a 0.5% net profit margin. That baseline has actually decreased since then because of poor performance from the Vaio division. The TV division was also a poor performer. I believe without those two divisions baseline profitability was closer to 300bn net profit per year and the net profit margin was close to 7%, because of a huge revenue loss from exiting TVs. On that basis, Sony's target share price would rise to around 4000 yen, giving instant shareholder returns.
There is literally no reason for Sony to be in TV manufacturing other than some odd sense of sentimental attachment.
With the sale of the Vaio division, the next logical move is the sale of the TV division or closing down of manufacturing and refocussing it completely towards 4K and leaving low margin 1080p products behind completely.
Sony's presence in electronics should be limited to design, engineering and supply chain management. Manufacturing of components and assembly should be completely outsourced. The profitable smartphone and gaming divisions use this model to great effect. There is absolutely no reason for Sony to make Wintel laptops, it is a low margin market with little to no fringe benefits for the company because of standardised software configurations. With smartphones and gaming products Sony has a the opportunity to push their own ecosystem because they are still a somewhat walled garden and ship with fully customised software. Imaging makes sense because they are the world leader in sensor design and production, plus prosumer cameras have very nice margins. What needs to speed up is their transition away from cheap digital compacts to premium RX cameras, and speeding up their lens releases for ILCE cameras.
Really though, TVs are the area that kills them, at last count there were 45-55k people employed within Sony working directly or indirectly on TVs, most of them in manufacturing and assembly. Shedding these positions either by selling the division or cutting out manufacturing and assembly would yield a significantly lower fixed cost base allowing for higher margins and profitability. FWIW, our calculation made early in 2012 said Sony had baseline net profitability of just 30bn yen in a given year, which is a 0.5% net profit margin. That baseline has actually decreased since then because of poor performance from the Vaio division. The TV division was also a poor performer. I believe without those two divisions baseline profitability was closer to 300bn net profit per year and the net profit margin was close to 7%, because of a huge revenue loss from exiting TVs. On that basis, Sony's target share price would rise to around 4000 yen, giving instant shareholder returns.
There is literally no reason for Sony to be in TV manufacturing other than some odd sense of sentimental attachment.
Whoa, crazy indeed.
n64coder
Member
What did you find special about the 2012 Vaio S? I have the 15" version and I find it ok. I dislike the track pad because it's off-centered from the home row so it's not uncommon that I get random pointer moves or text deleted. I'll never get the separate number pad for a laptop again.
I agree on the speakers. I have to have it on max volume to hear anything out of it. For almost a year, I had the built-in webcam show up as an unknown usb device until they finally released a ricoh camera firmware fix. Annoying. Currently running WIndows 8.1 and still occasionally get messages about Vaio Messenger crashing.
Anyway, I would look at Lenovo, Dell, or Apple the next time I need a laptop. No more Vaios for me.
I will say that Sony made a really nice laptop backpack. It wasn't cheap ($65) but it's awesome. Lots of pockets.
Typing on my Vaio S 13". One of the best windows laptops. Macbook is in a different league though.
biggersmaller
Banned
I've purchased both VAIO and Apple computers. VAIO is not as well built when compared to Apple, and the prices are roughly comparable. If you want a solid Windows laptop - just load W7 onto a MBP.
However, as with with IBM, Lenovo will likely change little-to-nothing about the design of these things - just rebranding while clinging to the model designs for as-long-as-possible. I will say it would be nice to have a VAIO Lenovo laptop option at the workplace over the kinda crappy ThinkPads I've been using for the last seven years.
However, as with with IBM, Lenovo will likely change little-to-nothing about the design of these things - just rebranding while clinging to the model designs for as-long-as-possible. I will say it would be nice to have a VAIO Lenovo laptop option at the workplace over the kinda crappy ThinkPads I've been using for the last seven years.
The Main Event
Member
I do a clean install of windows so that gets ride of all software bloat. Then I install all (25) of the drivers in their proper order. (Here I will stop and interject that this is a flaw with how Microsoft sells and subsidizes their products. Lucky for me I have the know how to fix it. I don't expect the consumer to.) That being said I think I can fairly judge what the product is capable of being.
When I bought mine I needed an light and thin 15" laptop with preferably a 1080p screen. I also had a minimum set of bare specs in mind. Building an equivalent Thinkpad would have been $1700 and for a Mac it was about $2400. The only computer that feel into the same league was the Samsung Series 7, but that had a 720p display and was maybe a hundred dollars more. Friends of mine who bought gaming laptops couldn't run the games that I was on high, and furthermore my laptop had a physical switch to turn of the GPU and use integrated graphics. Plus it flipped on all power saving modes. Even with full performance on I get 3 hours of battery on max brightness after a year and a half.
In the end I was going to buy a product strictly with portability. Thin and light, hopefully with a 1080p screen. I got much more than I bargained for. Even that year if you followed laptop forums that 2012 Vaio S was mentioned all over. I'm not sure if Vaios are that good of deal all the time, perhaps Sony was just trying to move chips that would otherwise be warehoused. But regardless, the product is amazing.
I don't know what to say about the trackpad, personally it's the best I've used short of a mac, and the keyboard is the best chicklet short of a mac/thinkpad. It's much lighter to boot, and comes at a much better value.
biggersmaller
Banned
Fixed. :-(
Hey me too! I love this thing. Decent gaming performance for the price and very well built.
But yeah I'm definitely getting a Macbook Pro or Air when it's time to upgrade. I had a Macbook Air before this one and it was on another level in terms of hardware quality.
andrerobot
Member
VAIOs are just pretty computers. The bundled software just sucks, they never update their graphic drivers.
Also, you're going to get stuck with the version of Windows it had bundled. Sometimes they have upgrade paths (like from Windows 7 to Windows 8), but in my experience they barely work or you're going to lose some kind of functionality.
Message to Sony: don't fucking say that a computer is Windows 8 compatible when the Stamina switch won't work or when some random Sony utility shuts your system down because it stopped detecting the fucking battery.
Also, you're going to get stuck with the version of Windows it had bundled. Sometimes they have upgrade paths (like from Windows 7 to Windows 8), but in my experience they barely work or you're going to lose some kind of functionality.
Message to Sony: don't fucking say that a computer is Windows 8 compatible when the Stamina switch won't work or when some random Sony utility shuts your system down because it stopped detecting the fucking battery.
Third Strike
Member
Looks like it is confirmed that Sony is selling their Vaio PC business to JIP (Japan Industrial Partners). The sale should be done by the end of March:
http://www.engadget.com/2014/02/06/...ium=feed&utm_campaign=Engadget&?ncid=rss_full
http://www.engadget.com/2014/02/06/...ium=feed&utm_campaign=Engadget&?ncid=rss_full
Sony finally making the moves they should have done years ago.
Aquamarine
Member
The Nikkei is usually very reliable with their rumors, so that's why I saw their rumour fit for a full topic.
Earnings Release:
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/fr/13q3_sony.pdf
Aquamarine
Member
OP updated with the new information. If a mod sees this, it would be a good idea to change the title as well. ;-)
Junior Mint
Member
Fucking this. I had a Sony Vaio with XP that said it was "compatible" with Vista. None of the drivers worked right and the install process was completely fucked up to the point that you had to install drivers in a certain order to get the fuckin thing functioning properly. I learned my lesson then and never bought another one again. I'm not even gonna go into how much turd was pre-installed on that thing and all the fucked up system processes and files it left behind even when you uninstalled all the crapware.
The ONLY computers I consider nowadays are Thinkpads or Macbooks. I don't even waste my time with anything else.
CadetMahoney
Member
this.
Crimsonlink
Member
I dunno why people are saying Sony shouldn't be in the mobile division. They are actually finding success there. I just bought a new Sony Z1S from T-Mobile.
Bob Dobalina
Member
There will never be another Vaio Z. Think this is for the best though.
This.
Sony is actually seeing growth and profitability from mobile. Them getting out of PCs and TVs is clearing the right way to go, though. Those two divisions are massive money sinks with no end in sight, and these recent moves to either get rid of it entirely (PCs) or force them to sink or swim on their own without dragging the entire corporation down with them (TVs) should have happened the moment Kaz became CEO.
Never been a huge fan, but I always respected the Vaio line. End of an era indeed. It isn't very much like Sony to sell their brands (when you consider Bravia, Xperia, PlayStation -- they even still use 'Walkman'), but I suppose it makes sense, because there's arguably not much in the line other than the name. Sigh. Shame they never played on the Chromebook market (VAIO CC111 was presumably cancelled, wasn't it?).
But I suppose this is probably for the best. The market isn't very sustainable when it comes to Sony's approach on it.
But I suppose this is probably for the best. The market isn't very sustainable when it comes to Sony's approach on it.
Wiktor
Member
Do they actually make money on mobile though?
hoverboarder
Member
Hope they never leave the TV division..go to Best Buy and look at the Sony W900 next to the Samsung F8000. No comparison, Sony is still the best looking picture on the market.
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