Sony stops producing laptops. Farewell VAIO: a look back at Sony's most impressive laptops

The famous laptop brand Vaio was sold to Sony in February 2014. The buyer was Japan Industrial Partners, which paid for the laptop manufacturer, according to various sources, from $400 to $500 million. Sony justified its decision by “radical changes in the global PC industry,” or, in simpler terms, by the prolonged decline of the PC market. In return, Sony decided to concentrate on the smartphone and tablet segment.

Vaio itself, under the leadership of Japan Industrial Partners, initially wanted to concentrate on the corporate segment of the Japanese market, where the brand’s position was especially strong.

However, the company has now decided to rediscover international sales. Devices under this brand will go to retail in the United States in October. In particular, sales of Vaio through its chain of stores will be handled by . According to company representatives, this is due to the fact that Microsoft wants to expand the range of products offered to all audiences.

In addition, the company is also counting on the Brazilian market, having entered into a partnership with local electronics manufacturer Positivo Informatica. The company will manufacture and distribute devices developed by Vaio.

However, at the moment Vaio has an extremely weak position in the market. According to Euromonitor, which cites The Wall Street Journal, even in its native Japanese market the company's share does not exceed 1%.

The company currently employs only 250 people, and the production of Vaio devices is carried out at a single plant, which it owns.

According to company CEO Yoshimi Ota, Vaio will aim to occupy a niche in the premium device segment. The head of Vaio believes that devices should be aimed at designers, photographers and artists, that is, at the audience that has traditionally been fans of . Ota also said that among Windows devices, no one can offer an alternative to Cupertino laptops.

This differs from the policy pursued by Sony, which tried to make Vaio a mass brand. Ota indicated that Sony was more concerned about Vaio's market share than the profitability of the business.

Moreover, Ota expects that Vaio will make an operating profit this fiscal year, despite the losses that were recorded in the past.

Today, Vaio sells devices that were developed within the walls of Sony. In the US, the company will release a new device, the Vaio Z Canvas, a tablet with a clip-on keyboard and a 12.3-inch display with a resolution of 2560x1704 pixels. The processor is a high-performance Intel Core i7 chip. The focus of the device on artists is indicated by the stylus, which is inserted into a loop at the end of the device.

Vaio Z Canvas // Image: vaio.com

The cost of the tablet, which went on sale in Japan in May, is 200 thousand yen (about $1,600). In the US, Vaio plans to launch at a price starting at $2,199, which is about double what it was when the company was targeting the mass market.

In addition to laptops, Vaio also began producing Palmi robots developed by Fujitsu. It is set up at the same plant where Sony previously produced Aibo robots and where laptops are also produced. In the future, Vaio plans to also produce wearable accessories and devices for production. Ota expects that in fiscal 2017, profits from such devices will be comparable to profits from laptops.

Vaio is a strong brand, and users have not forgotten it, a leading analyst at iKS-Consulting told Gazeta.Ru. “Even apart from Sony, it was quite popular,” he believes. According to the expert, Vaio products can become popular, and with good distribution and thoughtful advertising and marketing strategies, the brand will be able to return to its previous position with minimal costs.

“The only question is how sales will be organized logistically,” Savvatin said.

He also noted that as a sales channel, Microsoft stores will not be of great help in selling the company's products, since the company's retail network is not so large. “Vaio will need to build partnerships with stronger players in retail. In addition, it is not entirely clear how retail will be structured in other countries besides the United States,” he added.

The fact that Sony is selling its division for the production of personal computers and laptops under the VAIO brand was a sad, but generally expected event. Over the past year, the situation on the computer and laptop market has not been developing very well, and I think this is not the last negative news we will hear.

I hope that the reasons for this decision can be discussed in detail in a separate article. For now, I’ll just note that in the case of Sony, several negative factors overlapped. Firstly, this is a difficult situation in the laptop market as a whole. Secondly, a number of negative factors affecting the Japanese economy. Finally, Sony itself has been operating at losses for a long time and cannot develop the right strategy that would allow it to get out of losses. Moreover, most of the losses arise from work in the “electronic” direction: the production of PCs and televisions.

In general, we will talk about the causes of the situation and its consequences separately, but for now let's focus on the VAIO division.

VAIO yesterday and today

Disappeared advantages

There was a time when Sony VAIO laptops were considered the benchmark of technology and style, providing its users with a unique combination of features. True, like other purebred Japanese computer equipment, they cost a lot. But everyone understood why.

Sony VAIO has always been famous for the following things.

Firstly, Sony's flagship laptops have always been thin and light for their time. Small computers with Windows, which, despite their modest size, also have good autonomy - no one had such things. Businessmen really liked this combination, which largely predetermined the positioning of these models.

Secondly, Sony laptops have always been technologically advanced. Innovative materials, the latest technologies, unusual interesting features, modern platforms. However, at that time, cramming existing components of mobile platforms into a thin and light body, and even ensuring decent battery life, was already akin to a feat. And Sony has proven its status as one of the leaders time after time.

Thirdly, what is now formulated as “legendary Japanese quality”. Compared to what was sold in Sony's heyday, its VAIO laptops did offer a noticeably higher quality of materials and workmanship that set them apart in the market and created the desired image. Although, as far as reliability is concerned, I’m not sure - I know too many different cases.

However, the company gradually lost all these advantages. Gradually, all laptops became thinner and lighter, and with the release of new, more economical platforms, operating autonomy also increased. Technologies became more widespread and spread throughout the market. The overall level of design grew, the quality of materials and workmanship became better, and overall reliability increased. And gradually it turned out that the difference between Sony products and competitors’ models became unimportant.

At the same time, Sony VAIOs were not ideal at all - they had many of their own features and disadvantages, including those that affected the ease of working with a laptop. Often this was due to low reliability (for example, with SZ) or problems with the stability of the case (the first Z), which is traditionally difficult to disassemble for Japanese laptops. Speaking about the disadvantages for users, we can recall strong heating and noise of cooling fans. Also, VAIO laptops have always been distinguished by a very complicated driver installation procedure (most users simply couldn’t cope with it) and the system was seriously littered with unnecessary software. And these are top, very expensive lines!

Much the same thing happened with style. At one time, Sony VAIO laptops looked like a standard of style compared to dull gray or black plastic laptops. But those times are gone. And although modern VAIOs still look very cool today, the overall level has increased even more, and models from other manufacturers look no worse. There are a lot of stylish models on the market for every taste.

In general, only the Sony brand remained. However, it was also affected by general devaluation. Moreover, image advantages apply only to top models, while Sony’s mainstream model was significantly more expensive than its competitors, while having only the same style and brand as its advantages. No, the company had unique pink models, but this won’t make mass sales. In general, Sony has only a narrow group of buyers left who are willing to overpay for the brand image. However, this image is not formed by itself.

So, the old technological potential of Sony VAIO laptops has been exhausted for several years now. But the problem is not just technology.

Vicious strategy

Japanese companies are also characterized by what is sometimes called an “overly conservative approach.” Simply put - fear of making sharp decisions and excessive collegiality. The Japanese are good at acting in accordance with long-term plans, their strong point is moderation and accuracy. For the same reasons, the Japanese rarely act as market drivers, preferring to follow in the wake of those who shape the market. Therefore, in stable markets they are able to succeed. But if sudden changes begin in the market, then Japanese companies most often begin to have problems.

In general, all the crisis phenomena described did not encourage Sony to at least somehow change its market strategy. Despite all of the above, Sony, with tenacity worthy of better use, continued to cling to the image of a premium brand, which was finding less and less response among buyers, raising prices on its flagship lines (the same ones, Japanese, not Chinese) to cosmic levels. Despite the fact that the previous technical superiority no longer existed, moreover, laptops often contained rather strange solutions that made them inconvenient to work with.

It's interesting to note that most of Sony's technological advantages, for which it gained its reputation in the market, were successfully picked up by Apple and used in its laptops. But she played the “image and style” card much more successfully. By the way, it was with Apple that Sony tried for a long time to compete as the “sole premium brand”; in the USA they even opened brand stores in the same places...

In general, the company did not take active steps and gradually squandered its potential. And the place that Sony equipment occupied (or hoped to occupy) is firmly occupied by Apple. Its laptops have approximately the same positioning (even the same advantages), but a much more competent promotion policy.

Sony was probably finally finished off by ultrabooks. Thanks to Intel's initiative, a market niche that was originally Sony's domain has become the target of all laptop manufacturers. And with increasing competition, a huge selection of beautiful, stylish thin laptops for every taste appeared, and prices went down.

On top of that, Sony performed unsuccessfully in the emerging class of transformable ultrabook tablets, choosing an unsuccessful and inconvenient form factor. Thus, as a result, the company has nothing left in the laptop market (we don’t take the monoblock market, the situation there is even sadder) - not even any clear prospects.

Final: sale of the VAIO division

The historical maximum supply of Sony equipment to the market is 8.7 million units, and in 2012 the company supplied 7.5 million units to the market. In the third quarter of 2013, its PC market share, according to IDC, was 1.9%, a year earlier - 2.3%. In units this is approximately 1.5 million versus 2 million a year earlier for the quarter.

Sony's laptop and PC business is unprofitable, and has been for several years. However, all areas of the company related to electronics are unprofitable, with the production of televisions being particularly noticeable.

In recent years, the company has made several attempts at reforms (we will also talk about them separately) in order to restore profitability, but this was never achieved. I repeat - for many reasons, both internal (management problems within Sony) and external (the general crisis of the laptop market, problems of the Japanese economy).

In general, there was no chance of restoring profitability in this market, nor were there any prospects. The overall poor results and ineffectiveness of the ongoing reforms forced the company to make a tough decision - to get rid of the unprofitable asset.

Terms of sale

The new owner is Japan Industrial Partners, Inc. This is a Japanese company specializing in investments in industrial enterprises, specifically in the manufacturing sector. It was founded in 2000 (according to other sources, it began operations in 2002), and is located in Tokyo.

One of JIP's goals is to help struggling Japanese manufacturing companies, including through cost optimization. In particular, through restructuring, including the separation of non-core or unprofitable areas into separate enterprises. This stabilizes the main enterprise, allows it to focus on its core business, and also provides new opportunities for the newly formed company. The spin-off unit is either sold to long-term investors or they are trying to return it to profitability on their own.

Most likely, this fund is also a state or near-state structure that buys out important Japanese assets so that they do not leave the market and go to “non-Japanese” companies. When the first rumors about the sale of the PC division appeared in the press, the Chinese company Lenovo was named as the buyer. This would be quite an interesting move - both for the industry and from a political point of view. However, I am almost sure that Sony VAIO would not have been sold to the Chinese. And this, in general, is quite obvious. After all, the purchase of one of the largest image assets of the largest Japanese corporation to Chinese competitors would be a strong slap in the face. Stronger than the purchase of Opel by Russian investors.

To date, the parties have signed a memorandum of intent, and a full agreement must be developed and signed by the end of March 2014 (by the end of Sony’s financial year). The deal itself should be completed by July 1 this year.

According to official information (Sony press releases), as a result of the transaction, a new company should be created, to which the business for the production of personal systems, as well as all the assets of the division, will be transferred completely. Sony must stop developing, manufacturing and selling personal computers and laptops. But the wording here is somewhat vague, because there is an indication: “after the spring 2014 line of laptops enters the market.” That is, it is not clear what will happen to the new lines. They also promise to maintain warranty and post-warranty support for users, but these issues have not yet been finalized.

The corresponding division of Sony (and now it includes not only PCs and laptops, but also tablets and smartphones) will be disbanded. About 300 employees directly related to VAIO technology will be transferred to the new company. The remaining employees (about 700 people) will be transferred to other departments and divisions of Sony. The new company will occupy the same location in the Nagano technology cluster (Azumin city, Nagano Prefecture), where Sony's PC development center is currently located. The VAIO brand will also be transferred to the new company (the Sony brand will most likely not be retained on laptops).

At the outset of its operations, the new company will evaluate its development strategy and market behavior, with a rapid transition to profitability identified as the main priority. After this, a revision of the model range will be carried out - apparently, in the direction of reducing the model line, standardization and simplification.

There is another big news: the new company will focus on the Japanese market, including optimizing production and distribution. And only after successful work in this market will opportunities to enter other markets be considered. If we take this wording literally, then all Sony's activities in other countries regarding the sales and promotion of PCs and laptops should be curtailed.

The transaction amount is estimated at about 400-500 million dollars. Investments in the new company will be made by JIP, Sony will invest 5% of the company's capital.

Personal opinion (Sergey Korogod)

It's worth mentioning right away that my opinion will vary greatly depending on whether I speak as a person who writes professional laptop reviews or as an ordinary buyer. After all, as an author, I need to objectively reflect the pros and cons, but as a buyer, I may have my own priorities, which are very different from both the general market and the priorities of buyers of a particular laptop.

If we talk about professional opinion, Sony equipment stood out to me primarily for its high level of quality. Excellent case materials, excellent keyboards, interesting hardware. But the main thing is that Sony laptops have always been unusual and beautiful. I especially liked the “black” Z series (VA, etc.), which followed the “central tube design”. The appearance of Sony laptops has always been such that “I want” was formed in my head, and in a business environment and with a business suit they looked simply fantastic.

The problem is that Sony has always had significant advantages alongside significant disadvantages. Not even that: Sony had a strange system of priorities when creating a new model. To be honest, more than once or twice I got the impression that these laptops were made with people in mind who didn’t understand anything about computers at all and didn’t want to understand anything about them. “It works - and that’s fine.” Actually, the company’s crisis began with the fact that Apple took away the palm with bananas for such users. At a technical level that Sony has never reached.

For example, how can you make a laptop whose name VAIO the manufacturer itself deciphers as “for video and audio”, and at the same time put in it a disgusting screen, one of the worst on the market with terrible viewing angles (the only thing is that the anti-glare filter is good) and no less disgusting acoustics?

And the built-in management utilities in Windows are terrible. The design comes from the nineties, a completely unintuitive control scheme, and at the same time, it seems aimed at fools. For example, the keyboard backlight was controlled only automatically, and it could only be turned off in the depths of the menu.

Sony laptops more or less work only with the original driver sets, but the system is littered with a huge amount of unnecessary annoying software. The procedure for installing drivers can baffle the most experienced computer technician, even one familiar with the specifics (just look at the “strict procedure for installing drivers and utilities”, if not followed, nothing will work). Sony laptops are characterized by very high disassembly complexity. These are, in principle, common problems of all Japanese manufacturers (all of them come from the 90s and still persist), but Sony has especially distinguished itself.

Finally, positioning. Sony correctly tried to target senior managers who need a computer for simple work, but it must be beautiful and high-status. But at the same time, the company failed to get rid of the “technical priorities” of the 90s, when technology was fundamental, and fell between the chairs. Amusing features emerged from the positioning: Sony put top-end Core i7 processors in top models, which are not needed “for working with email,” while in thin and light cases they overheated themselves and heated the case so much that it was impossible to hold it on your lap - and this is with the deafening howl of the fans.

In general, Sony laptops turned out to be strange - very beautiful, very desirable, but with dubious functionality (claimed video / audio, but in fact - a corporate machine for showing off and working with text) and a general “don’t touch it while it works” approach. There were enough advantages, but there were also a lot of disadvantages.

If we talk about my personal position as a person who was thinking about purchasing Sony laptops (largely because of their external beauty), then many times I wanted to buy myself a Sony laptop - and each of them had something that made the purchase unacceptable . Every time I understood: the machine is very beautiful, and I want to own one, but I need to work with it every day - and here, for example, the minus in the form of a very noisy fan will definitely outweigh the appearance as a plus.

As a user, I was also irritated by all Sony laptops, including the latest VAIO Pro, by their flimsiness. A laptop, and especially a premium one, should not sag with a crunch when you pick it up, the whole body should not spring back when typing from pressing the keys, and the body should not “play” with it. Should not. In this regard, the Thinkpad or Macbook felt much more reliable - simply because it lay securely in the hand.

Results

So, Sony VAIO equipment should soon disappear from the world market, although the VAIO brand remains on it (for now). Which, by the way, looks like a rather strange decision. At the very least, the US market, with its simple logistics and large volumes (as far as I remember, it accounted for 35% of sales of VAIO equipment), would be worth trying to preserve - this is at least logical.

Perhaps the strategy outlined in Sony's press release is aimed at market participants and investors of the corporation, and its goal is to convince them that the company is finally breaking off interaction with the VAIO brand in unprofitable foreign markets. And later some additional agreements will be concluded (it was in vain that the spring 2014 line was mentioned). Or maybe, on the contrary, this is a plan for a “soft landing” of the brand, when it will be gradually removed from the market or pushed into some niche - they just didn’t want to give it to the Chinese now.

I'm not a big expert on the peculiarities of the Japanese market, so it's difficult to make definitive conclusions about whether VAIO can survive there. The Japanese are very patriotic and choose their own products - yes. But will there be enough Japanese buyers to keep the development and production lines running? Something tells me that it is unlikely - even if the Japanese market is in good condition, and it is now far from normal. The world has changed a lot over the past decades, and globalization, whatever you say about it, has greatly reduced prices and raised quality requirements. It is now difficult to survive in the local market alone.

As for Sony Corporation, its problem is not the crisis or the high exchange rate of the yen (although they, of course, play their negative role). The main problem is an outdated work scheme from the 90s, which the Japanese cannot get rid of. Traditional Japanese moderation and accuracy, following the leader, a specific system of priorities and a fear of making sharp and difficult decisions (in fact, a general fear of decision-making, which they hide behind “collegiality”) - all this, plus formed in the late 90s - in the early 2000s (the most successful years for the Sony computer division), the corporate culture and production culture, which no one wanted or could change, is the main reason for the crisis within the company.

It's like a disease, and it affected not only the PC and laptop division - it affected all divisions, representative offices and often even external contractors. Therefore, it is not a fact that getting rid of the unprofitable laptop and PC division will allow the company to achieve profitability. “The whole system needs to be changed here,” as an old Soviet joke said. On the one hand, it’s good that the Japanese understand the problem (and constantly write about it in program documents). On the other hand, it is alarming that the problem was formulated a very long time ago, and Sony has still not been able to solve it.

Be that as it may, the history of the Sony VAIO computer division is over. This is the end (Doors).

On the sale of the business producing Vaio personal computers. At the same time, the Japanese company announced job cuts and measures to return the TV division to profit.

According to Sony's official website, the unprofitable Vaio PC division will be spun off into a new company owned by Japan Industrial Partners (a joint venture of Bain & Co. and Mizuho Securities Co). Sony will receive a 5 percent stake in this company, and will also transfer about 250-300 of its employees to it. By March 2014, the Japanese corporation will stop developing and selling devices under the Vaio brand, however, even after this period it will provide warranty and post-warranty service to existing customers.

It is not known how much Japan Industrial Partners will pay for Sony's computer business. Earlier, the Nikkei publication called the cost 50 billion yen ($493 million). According to analysts, the loss of the Vaio division, which employs about 1,000 people, will amount to $300 million in the current financial year (lasting until the end of March). After the sale of the PC business, the company will focus on Xperia smartphones and tablets.

Sony also announced that it would move its television division to a new subsidiary by July 2014. These measures, according to the vendor, should return the TV business to profit within a year. To do this, the corporation will focus on more cost-effective products, such as models with 4K resolution. In addition, in emerging markets it is planned to release devices “taking into account local requirements.”

As part of the ongoing reorganization of the computer and television areas, about 5,000 jobs will be cut. The layoffs will affect 1,500 employees in Japan and 3,500 overseas. The layoffs will occur among workers in production, sales and administration.

The serious changes that Sony is preparing for could not but affect the forecast. If earlier for the current financial year the company expected a net profit of 30 billion yen, now it predicts a loss of 110 billion yen (about $1.1 billion). In April-December 2013, the profit of the Japanese manufacturer amounted to about $110 million.

For a long time, laptops and other electronics from Sony were considered the standard of quality and reliability. This was largely due to the hard work of Japanese women, who persistently and efficiently soldered the elements on the boards. But then came the era of production automation, and first South Korean and then Chinese manufacturers began to strongly squeeze Japanese Sony, which in 2014 announced the sale of the Sony VAIO laptop business.

Today in our country it is almost impossible to buy Sony VAIO laptops - there are no leftovers, as well as new production. But service centers continue to offer repairs for these laptops. At the same time, the cost of repair turns out to be slightly more expensive than repairing the same Lenovo laptops. For example, replacing the power connector will cost you 1700-2000 rubles - https://sonyk-smart-service.ru/zamena_razema_pitaniya_sony_vaio/. Well, what can I say - Japanese brands have always been more expensive to service than Chinese and South Korean ones.

Should we worry that we won't see Sony VAIO laptops on the market anymore? Of course not. This is a natural development of the market. First, with the popularization of smartphones and tablets, the demand for laptops has decreased significantly, increasing competition within the shrinking market. The advantage of Sony VAIO laptops was the quality and reliability that other manufacturers provide today - all the equipment is assembled by robots anyway. At the same time, these laptops do not have any technological highlight that could make their owners proud of the fact that they have the Sony VAIO brand - often for the same money the buyer received a slower laptop than Chinese manufacturers sold for the same money.

Sony VAIO also had a lot of problems with drivers. As soon as you decided to switch to a new operating system or simply replace the supplied operating system with a boxed one, problems arose with additional buttons on the keyboard, etc. The problem with Wi-Fi falling off is also not new. Yes, there is a solution - you need to disable the power saving function of USB ports. But is this what a buyer of a top-end laptop should do? We think not. Therefore, no Sony VAIO - no.

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The Japanese corporation Sony has officially abandoned the production of its legendary PCs under the VAIO brand. The exit from this business became part of the corporation's new strategy to cut ineffective expenses - the division was unprofitable. Now the corporation is betting only on its still profitable business of entertainment devices.

Sony's computer business was once going to be acquired by the Chinese company Lenovo, but in the end the VAIO brand, along with all its employees and facilities, will go to the investment fund Japan Industrial Partners. The amount of the deal has not been reported, but analysts estimate the asset at $400-500 million. Under the terms of the deal, Japan Industrial Partners will create a new enterprise in Japan that will take over the functions of managing Sony's computer business. Completion of the transaction is expected in March 2014.

The VAIO brand will most likely cease to exist in the international market. However, they promise to preserve it within the country. Today's Sony computer owners will continue to receive technical support.

The Japanese company itself explains the abandonment of VAIO by the fact that it wants to concentrate on mobile devices - tablets and smartphones. According to IDC, global PC sales in the fourth quarter of 2013 amounted to 82.2 million units. This is 5.6% less than what was sold at the end of 2012. PC sales are falling even in Russia, which is not the most saturated market: in the last quarter of 2013, according to IDC, shipments decreased by 8.6% compared to the same period in 2012, up to 2.7 million units.

From the official Sony press release

Sony is actively pursuing a turnaround strategy for its entire electronics business, as announced in April 2012. In the Photo/Video, Game Consoles and Mobile Devices segments, which the company has identified as the top three businesses that will drive growth in its electronics business, Sony has achieved significant progress in implementing this strategy.<...>At the same time, the company concluded that its PC and LCD TV businesses urgently needed to improve profitability and implemented a number of measures to reform them.

<...>Sony Corporation and Japan Industrial Partners Inc. (JIP) signed a memorandum of understanding confirming the parties' intentions, namely Sony's intention to sell its PC business to JIP, currently operating under the VAIO brand.

<...>As part of the transition of its JIP business, Sony will cease planning, designing and developing PC products. Production and distribution will also cease after the global launch of the spring 2014 line. However, after leaving the PC market, Sony will continue to provide after-sales service to its customers.

Analysts explain this state of affairs by saying that the industry lacks innovation: a critical mass of users have already acquired PCs, and the incentives to change them to newer ones are becoming less and less every year. Sony VAIO's share of the global PC market is now negligible: about 2%. For this reason, computers for the vendor are no longer a profitable business or a promising market worth fighting for. Many analysts therefore call the deal with JIP a success for Sony, because if there was no buyer, this business would simply have to be closed.

Analysts about the deal

Marie-Christine Pigot Marie-Christine Pygott, senior personal systems analyst at Context, said: “Sony's decision to exit the PC business was a result of not only operating in a shrinking market, but also the fact that the company was one of its smaller players. With the traditional PC market shrinking, especially in the consumer mobile PC segment where Sony operated and where demand was increasingly shifting to tablets and smartphones, such players found it increasingly difficult to remain profitable as they did not have the economies of scale that large vendors enjoy . Having decided to target smartphones and tablets, Sony now intends to capitalize on the growth opportunities available in these segments. However, there are also difficulties here, especially in the tablet market, where more and more players are trying to enter, and this leads to increased competition and, as a result, lower prices and narrowing margins.”

According to Context, the share of Sony laptops in distribution channels in Western Europe in 2012–2013. was 1.5–2%.

Roger Kay, chief analyst at Endpoint Technology Associates, says that while Sony was sorting out pricing for the Vaio, the unit was losing money: “Years ago, Sony was a real threat to competitors in the PC business, but lost that position because of pricing. Vaio laptops are not bad at all, but what is their niche? They couldn't compete with Lenovo and ThinkPad in the enterprise segment and were too expensive to compete in the consumer market."

As for the downturn in the traditional PC market, Kaye believes Sony's departure could prompt other manufacturers to rethink their PC business: “Will other players leave? I think yes".

Annette Jump, director of market research for client computers at research company Gartner: “Indeed, Sony is leaving the PC market in Europe and Russia this quarter. I believe that some other mid-tier PC vendors (I'm not naming their names or brands) that don't have the necessary capabilities to scale their business or aren't growing their business in other market segments like tablets and smartphones might also consider over the future fate of your PC business.”

Natalia Vinogradova, analyst at IDC-Russia: “Currently, the mobile PC market is going through hard times if we consider it separately from tablet devices. According to IDC Quarterly PC Tracker, at the end of the year the laptop segment decreased by 32.1% compared to 2012. The decline in growth in Sony PC shipments in Russia amounted to 36.7% year-on-year. From which we can conclude that today Sony’s PC business is not profitable. This situation is not fundamentally different from the situation of the company in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Based on the results of the fourth quarter of 2013, total supply volumes in this region fell by 27.9% compared to the same period last year. Most likely, this fact became one of the main reasons for Sony’s refusal to produce personal computers.

In the Russian PC market, only Lenovo, Acer Group, ASUS and Hewlett-Packard achieved a double-digit share of indicators. At the end of 2013, Sony's share decreased to 3.1%. The disappearance of computers branded Sony VAIO should not cause the same strong blow to the market as Samsung once did, reducing the supply of laptops in Russia by almost 1.2 million units at the end of 2013.

It is obvious that along with the decline in the volume of the PC market, only competitively stronger vendors will remain in it.”

There are many reasons why Sony failed to conquer the PC market. But the main one is that the Japanese corporation played in the premium segment, but was actually unable to offer customers any significant options for which they had to pay extra. In other words, if Apple, selling a computer for more than 1 thousand dollars, also offers the user access to its own unique eco-system and operating system, then Sony only supplied Windows with a couple of proprietary utilities. And the market, in which the quality of software is almost more important than the quality of hardware, VAIO did not accept: there were plenty of cheaper alternatives, but with the same functionality.

Nevertheless, Sony's VAIO division has produced great, iconic computers over the years. The brand itself was introduced to the market back in 1996. And these PCs at one time were sold in the millions.

CRN/RE suggests recalling unique VAIO computers.

1. The VAIO PCV-90, which went on sale 18 years ago, was at one time the most powerful and stylish in the world, and some of its copies are still in operation. The computer, based on a Pentium processor with a clock speed of 200 MHz, had unprecedented amounts of memory at that time: 32 MB of RAM and 2.5 GB of hard disk memory and ran Windows 95. On top of that, it looked great. This is perhaps the world's first powerful PC with a “friendly” design and a full range of multimedia tools.
2. VAIO PCG-707 became the first laptop in the company's portfolio. It went on sale in July 1997. It was a 12.1-inch device, the screen of which supported a resolution of 1024 × 768 pixels. Such saturation of the matrix made this laptop unique in its kind. There was also a removable drive for reading CDs, a modem capable of operating at a speed of 33.6 Kbps, 128 MB of RAM (for laptop computers of that time this seemed unthinkable) and a 2.1 GB hard drive - memory. The lithium-ion battery charge was enough for about three hours of battery life.
3. VAIO PCG-Z1/P. The Z series laptops have been considered the benchmark among portable PCs for many years. The device in question was introduced in 2003. It had an outstanding display (14.1 inches) with a resolution of 1400x1050 pixels and a battery that could support the laptop for seven hours. Since only businessmen and top managers could afford such a computer, it looked so good that even today it does not seem outdated.
4. In 2009, a series of devices were released under the VAIO P brand that could have become a real revolution, but due to reasons beyond Sony’s control, they never did. We are talking about 8-inch laptops, the displays of which had a fantastic resolution of 1600x786, an Intel Atom processor with a clock frequency of 1.33 GHz, 2 GB of RAM and a 6 GB hard drive. In its advertising campaign, Sony emphasized that its laptops fit in your pocket.

   At the time of the VAIO P's release, the most talked about devices were netbooks - ultra-portable and ultra-cheap laptops. Sony decided to outsmart the market and offer an ultra-compact computer that is quite expensive, but looks impressive and performs just as well as the “big” system. But a miracle did not happen: VAIO P turned out to be slow. And it was difficult to work on their miniature displays for any length of time. Well, then Steve Jobs showed his iPad, and it became clear that no one needed netbooks as an alternative to traditional bulky PCs.

5. VAIO W ALL-IN-ONE is perhaps the only successful attempt to combine a PC and a TV at once. Sony offered a computer, unusual for that time, which, thanks to its built-in TV antenna, also received television programs. The PC with a 15.3-inch screen was sold with a remote control and a fairly wide range of specialized multimedia programs. Despite the fact that the idea of ​​​​“crossing” a computer and a TV turned out to be not the most successful, Sony’s device turned out to be good, and it also sold quite well.