Slashdot Mirror
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 am on my 3rd sony vaio product - have been using them for the past decade pretty much. OMG. Sony's vaio design team is awesome!!! Very sad news.
HP/Compaq have merged
Current affairs are not your strong point that was nearly a decade ago!
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
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.
Join the Slashcott!
February 10th - 17th
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Slashdot Overlords, You can continue posting new stories, but we will just keep complaining about the beta. Can you meet us halfway and actually create a story for us to dump hatred into so that we can go back to commenting on articles we haven't read? This isn't going to go away, and you might have realized this is not the most patient and incapable group. In a week this whole community can be destroyed or moved...
My advice to the peons working on Slashdot: find another job. The veracity with which this "upgrade" is being pushed displays a stubborness that can only be attributed to MBAs with no idea of what Slashdot is about. The fact that the commenting system is such an afterthought in the Beta is as much evidence as I need that the people pushing this redesign never use this site.
I know you don't get to decide whether or not the Beta moves forward or which design gets used, but believe this: You WILL be blamed when it fails. You work for a corporation now and the higher ups with undoubtedly throw you under the bus when they have to explain to their bosses or shareholders why the website redesign failed. This failure is going to be associated with you and your teammates and it will set back any hopes you have of being promoted within the company. Take the advice of me and my fellow Slashdotters: Get out now.
The best thing about UDP jokes is I don't care if you get them or not
I think the industry has been its own undoing, as efficiency has increased, prices have dropped and its been harder and harder to make money even tho PCs still sell. If you cant move the volume you cant survive.
We may end up with a single company making them here soon.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I was going to make an honest, on-topic comment.
But... screw it.
Fuck Beta!
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
It was a fitful night. Not much rest. The way the tragic events unfolded yesterday had left a type of brain trauma I've not quite experienced before. Whitespace.... gobs and gobs of it.. summaries taking up the entirety of my browser window..... the damn thing was relentless and sneaky; Sometimes redirecting to a familiar and sane UI, yet other times..... DEAR GOD MAKE IT STOP!!!!!...... *gaaack*... *AAaccck* *synack*... *thump*.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Indeed, a company that neglects the views of a site's user community is truly clueless. Slashdot has its own traditions, and Slashdotters like the fact that it has an older and faster design that allows more content on the page. That's part of what makes this site special. If Dice doesn't understand some of these very basic matters, then I don't trust them with the future of Slashdot.
The new design is really ugly Web 3.0 crap, by the way. Just a bunch of huge pictures, excessive whitespace, and fade effects -- treating a technical website like a picture book for Joe Sixpack! Part of the greatness of Slashdot was always its special moderation system, also, which controlled discussions in a positive way (not just +1 or -1 for dumb-dumbs). Talk about not understanding your demographic...
Systemd: the PulseAudio of init systems
It is now official. Netcraft has confirmed: Slashdot is dying.
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Slashdot community when IDC confirmed that Slashdot page views has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all websites. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that Slashdot has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Slashdot is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by the stupid fucking beta website and the wholesale discard of user feedback.
You don't need to be the Amazing Kreskin to predict Slashdot's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Slashdot faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Slashdot because Slashdot is dying. Things are looking very bad for Slashdot. As many of us are already aware, Slashdot continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
Slashdot Beta is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core users. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time Slashdot users Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: Slashdot is dying.
All major surveys show that Slashdot has steadily declined in market share. Slashdot is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Slashdot is to survive at all it will be among S&M enthusiasts. Slashdot continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Slashdot is dead.
That crippling bombshell sent Slashdot fans into a tailspin of mourning and denial. However, bad news poured in like a river of water.
Is that good or bad?
For open platforms manufactured by large companies, it's bad. We can still buy barebones PCs and cheap laptops, but there's an obvious transition away toward locked down systems like tablets and consumer products.
OTOH: the old PC was a successor to prior hobby platforms that were fully open. The old ALTAIR / IMSAI, Heathkit, SWTPC, Apple II, etc world of 8 bit before it went corporate. If IBM had had its way, what we're seeing today would have happened much sooner. Ironically, we can thank Microsoft for stalling that outcome for decades. It had already happened twice with mainframe and minicomputer players decades before, as they swiped ideas and technology developed in university labs for commercialization and then locked them down.
So maybe this shift will engender a resurgence of very slow systems designed for hobbyists to built from scratch. A bifurcation of commercial products for the general public and a hobby community that might lead to hands on hardware / software development of entirely new platforms. A real resurgence of competition without commercial pressure because it's being done just for fun.
Such systems wouldn't fulfill the expectations of consumers. Nor should they. But they might be cool to tinker with. And that could have second order effects down the road that could impact future markets in unexpected ways. Or not. And who cares?
A hobbyist / commercial hardware split might be for the best.
Or, maybe I'm talking nonsense. I often do.
I never understood the appeal of the Sony laptops. It seemed like they were trying to hit the Apple price point but with reliability that made the Apple laptops look like the greatest feat of engineering since the wheel. Add to that all the bloatware that Sony installed as standard and I really can't find an advantage.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
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
As someone who has had to rip open and repair Sony VAIO desktops and laptops for a long time, I can say with authority that they're the WORST computer brand EVER when it comes to the repair business. Every computer has two different model numbers, there are a seemingly infinite number of minor incompatible variants, finding used parts is a ridiculous endeavor (because everything has to have multiple model and part numbers and almost no part seems to be drop-in compatible) and I don't care if I never see another one on my workbench ever again.
/rant
Any full-sized laptop that requires you to remove the keyboard, all the top plastics, and heaps of fragile FPC cables just to get to the hard drive and memory is automatically ultra-shitty shit and the engineers responsible should be bear dick punched. Maybe the new owners will fix some of this mess.
So far I've seen Beta only once - the /. page showed up all messed up, and asked me if I wanted to try it out, to which I quickly said no - and since then I haven't been bothered.
But I must say, if Beta truly is as atrocious as I've once seen it, I won't be visiting this here site much in the future.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I sincerely hope that BETA dies a quicker and more painful death than Sony's BETAMAX.
Looks absolutely dreadful on a Sony Vaio.
Dear Slashdot,
I'm fairly sure that I know what you're trying to do with Beta crap. You're trying to lure in a younger, more hip readership that's less technical but brings in more revenue. In other words, this "Web 2.0" redesign is trying to attract people exactly like me. I'm young, male, middle-class, and (possibly) looking for a new job, which I suspect is exactly the demographic you're aiming the Beta at. I'm also less technically inclined - I'm an actuary, not a programmer or an IT guy. As you can see from my posting history, I've only been here a short time, although I read and posted anonymously for a while at first.
But I hate Slashdot Beta every bit as much as the old fogies who are complaining above me. I don't come to Slashdot for flamebait articles or glitzy graphics, I come here because I want to learn about and discuss technical topics that I don't encounter in my day-to-day work. I read the discussions here so that I can understand the technical stuff that my office's IT lady tells me, and so that I can better understand the technology that I interact with. I comment in discussions here because I want to avoid the teenage, brain dead, narcissistic, color vomiting "new new internet" bullshit twittering that's infecting discourse on the rest of the internet.
I've just started participating in the Slashdot community. I'm pretty sure that I'm the exact demographic you want to attract. You had such a good opportunity to reel me in permanently. Yet you've utterly failed with Slashdot Beta. I've already abandoned a fair number of web communities after they gutted their discussion system or went too far with the Web 2.0 nonsense. Likewise, I'll regretfully, but quickly, abandon Slashdot if I'm forced into this Beta bullshit against my will and against the obvious will of the community here.
Sincerely,
hendrips, a representative member of your target audience
beta.slashdot is so bad that Sony had to sell its computer business.
My Vaio is 10+ years old and never a problem. Granted, it's an outlier especially wrt the hard drive but still...
Indeed, a company that neglects the views of a site's user community is truly clueless.
Not only clueless, but it's sheer stupidity. They release a turd site and ask feedback to improve it. Then they take none of that feedback into consideration and begin rolling that same site into live. A site which no one likes. Then no one comes here anymore. What else is this than pure stupidity?
All right. I will calmly watch this show to the end and see what the final result is. But if it resembles anything like what they are cooking now, I am left with no other options than to leave this website.
1. Metro
2. Unity
3...Apple Maps
4...
5 SLASHDOT BETA!
6. Oracle
7. Lotus Notes
8. Healthcare.gov
9. PS/2
10. WIndows ME
11. Microsoft Bob
12. Clippy
13. Clippy
14. Clippy
15. Lotus Notes
"May no new thing arise" - Spanish prayer
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Can you meet us halfway and actually create a story for us to dump hatred into so that we can go back to commenting on articles we haven't read?
Actually there is a story. The problem is that it's hidden in the Slashdot Blog which most of us do not even know to exist.
Posted 3 days ago: Update on the March of Progress: How Slashdot's New Look Is Shaping Up.
When they saw the new Slashdot Beta site at Sony engineering, they concluded that it's not worth to make computers anymore.
That would not have happened had those Dice assholes not try to push Beta on everyone.
Fuck Beta. It killed vaio.
Also, those dolphins washing up dead on the beaches? Beta killed them too.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
...of another great line of hardware ( albeit expensive ). What a shame.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
They were EXPENSIVE. The customer base they were targeting is the one that's walking right past the Sony store in the mall & right into the Apple store. They never even looked right either. Always long in one dimension, usually width. Fujitsu had the better line of pocket-sized laptops hands-down, & I'm pretty sure I've never serviced nor maintained VAIO back to life.
Less crap computers to deal with.
Sure, the things always looked sexy.
But they'd break if you looked at them funny.
That and all the attempts to inject stupid, Sony-proprietary connectors on everything...
I won't miss VAIO at all.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!