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Sony Selling Off VAIO Computer Business
Kensai7 writes "Confirming reports from earlier in the week, Sony has announced plans to sell off its VAIO computer division to a Japanese investment fund. Japan Industrial Partners (JIP) will take control of the operation for an undisclosed fee, and Sony will 'cease planning, design and development of PC products.' For a variety of reasons 'including the drastic changes in the global PC industry,' Sony says 'the optimal solution is to concentrate its mobile product lineup on smartphones and tablets and to transfer its PC business to a new company.'" I have some nostalgia for the tiny old VAIO laptops; I wish more companies incorporated the swiveling camera that they came with.
I do not agree with some of the comments here. I have found Sony laptops and desktops to be wanting in so many ways not the least of which is the repairability. It amazes me they could actually put that many screws into such tight spaces. The screws must double the weight of their machines or more. And the durability of their machines? Ridiculous. I can't say that I ever bought or used any of their "high end" machines, but the ones I have worked with had problems at all levels. And I hate the software. There's simply nothing I like about Sony computers. They need to disappear, not get passed on to the next unfortunate recipient.
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February 10th - 17th
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Who is left - based on products actually available in stores in NL (and this is not 100% coverage):
HP+Compaq (437), Lenovo (270), Asus (260), Acer (191), Toshiba (173), Dell (166), [Sony (68)], Samsung (66), MSI (58), Fujitsu (37), Medion (21), Apple (20), Packard Bell (19), BTO (8). Then there's a few more from Panasonic, Razer, Gigabyte, Wortmann, System76, Google and Alternate. Medion and BTO are local-ish brands, Wortmann seems like a peculiar import out of Germany. ( Source:tweakers.net pricewatch )
Looks like there's plenty left in the notebook/laptop/etc. market. Still, it's sad to SONY exit the market as the VAIOs were rather shiny - the matching price tags didn't exactly help their popularity despite the shiny factor, though.
You can't get out of beta if you try it, as they removed the link that returns you to classic. Fortunately, you can delete all the beta cookies and return to normal...
davecb@spamcop.net
You live in a funny world -
In MY world, sucks to be me I suppose, I have to use PROGRAMS. That are only written for Windows (maybe OS X, but few Enterprise programs are in OS X). Those PROGRAMS won't run on Linux or WINE (or Windows 7 but that's another issue).
In MY world, we have to attach to a network with fairly strict controls. Yes, a Linux network could do that, but since Linux won't run the PROGRAMS, it's hardly worth the effort.
PROGRAMS, PROGRAMS, PROGRAMS. Yes, the various distros have wonderful repositories for free software. Some of it excellent. A lot of it crap.
Your narrow world is just one reason why Linux won't displace Windows. Linux has, and will continue to make inroads into computing at a number of levels, the desktop does not appear to be one of them.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!