Today is July 1st, a time of new beginnings, the middle of the summer and the nature is in pure bloom. So is Sony, that will restart its TV business today and also give new life to the VAIO segment. The VAIO PC brand has been resurrected today, as the company sold the business to investment fund Japan Industrial Partners.
They said that they were planning to concentrate on tablets and smartphones, as the PC industry was dipping. The deal was supposed to close in July and now the brand new VAIO Corporation will be selling the VAIO Fit and VAIO Pro computers in Japan. The PCs won’t have Sony branding, but it’s still the Sony online store that sells them. The brand will be a smaller one now without Sony’s help, a mere shadow of what it was, with 240 employees.
They will keep the typical design direction and brand identity, though, so the quality is guaranteed. VAIO Corp starts today and Sony has a 5% stake in it. There’s no clue if this company will expand outside Japan or not. As such stories usually go, if the company becomes big, turns a profit and hits success, in a few years it may be bought back by Sony… and maybe we’ll also see some cool new VAIO tablets…
