Sony's Vaio logs into local PC market

By MICHAEL FOREMAN

Sony, makers of the world's leading computer games console - the PlayStation - has entered the cut-throat home computer market with the launch in New Zealand this week of the Vaio.

Vaio stands for Video Audio Integrated Operation and has been designed to work directly with digital video and MP3 files. It has a removable memory storage device called a Memory Stick and features iLink for fast data transfer between computers.

Sony's Kunimasa Suzuki, president of Global Vaio Direct - the company's computer subsidiary - admitted, while in Auckland, that the company was a late entrant into the computer market.

"There were many discussions in the company whether we should go into the PC market - a difficult one for newcomers," Mr Suzuki said.

Sony's first Vaio was launched in 1996 as a joint venture with Intel, and it spent a year test-marketing the product before cranking up production in earnest.

Sony knew that to succeed in this business it had to do something different, and it believed combining its strength in audio-visual products with information technology would provide the answer.

While the iLink interface is an industry standard, its Memory Stick is proprietary to Sony and has been introduced against similar storage cards.

Unlike most laptop manufacturers, Sony is pitching the Vaio at home users - an area it believes is growing faster than the corporate market.

The strategy seems to be paying off. Sony sold 1.4 million Vaios last year and expects to sell 2.8 million units this year.

The growth rate is impressive, but Sony reckons it will account for only 3.8 per cent of the worldwide portable PC market, which is way behind its Japanese rival Toshiba or American competitors such as IBM and Compaq.

In New Zealand, Sony will launch four models, starting with the sub-notebook sized PCG-C1XA retailing at $5199.

The price seems a lot for the consumer market to bear but Sony's information technology products manager Andrew Walker says feature for feature, the Vaio stands up well against the competition.

"If we manage to get 3 or 4 per cent of the market place in New Zealand in the first 12 months I will be ecstatic."