Sony announces division two Vaio
By Dean • Apr 16th, 2010 • Category: Industry News, Laptops, Mobile Computer News
- Photo: Sony
Sony has officially opened the gates to quality hell. Or they’re throwing in the towel. Or they know something we don’t. Either way, the Japanese company has announced a division two for its Vaio laptop, where other companies will design and manufacture the laptops.
Taste of Vaio
In an interview with PCPro, Ryosuke Akahane, deputy president of the Vaio group, claimed though other manufacturers will develop this new Sony Vaio range, the ‘taste of Vaio’ and the ‘style of Vaio’ will be retained.
Details

- Photo: Sony
This new Sony Vaio laptop division will still have the Vaio branding and Sony would approve the manufacturers beforehand. This, Akahane claimed, would ensure that the division two Vaios will be of comparable design and manufacturing quality to the division one Vaios, with the only difference being the technology contained within.
Premier League and Championship football
Why this strategy has been adopted bemuses us. Unless Sony applies the screening and quality control of that found on, say, Apple’s App Store for example, it will be very difficult to keep sub-standard laptops out. And, even if the company did adopt the screening process Apple applies, to reject a laptop at prototype level or even late-stage design would be financially damaging to the potential partners, which would intern put great strain on Sony’s relationship with them.
How this new Sony Vaio range won’t be championship football to the core Vaio’s premier league is unclear. It appears scale is the primary driver behind this initiative. Sony has said that they plan to sell 10 million Vaios in its current financial year, which represents a nearly 50% increase over last year’s 6.8 million, else, argues Akahane, they won’t have the competitive market share they need.
Tags for this article: sony vaio, sony laptop, new sony vaio

