The Viao computer brand is once again available for purchase. Japan Industrial Partners (JIP) on Tuesday officially reintroduced the notebook line after purchasing the rights from Sony earlier this year.
If you recall, the Japanese electronics giant parted ways with its computer division as part of a restructuring effort that will see them shift focus to smartphones and tablets. At the time of the purchase, JIP said they planned to focus on the Japanese market which is exactly what's happening now.
The first models under new ownership are the Vaio Fit and Vaio Pro notebooks. If these names sound familiar, they should - Sony introduced models that are virtually identical to these back in 2013. Both models are available with your choice of fourth generation Intel Core i3, i5 or i7 processors and can be configured with Windows 7 or Windows 8.1.
So yeah, these are essentially the same notebooks that Sony put out except now, they don't feature the Sony name. It's a somewhat smart move for JIP as they're able to put out a quality product immediately and buy themselves some time to decide how they want to move forward with the brand.
Whether or not JIP will be able to apply the same attention to detail that Sony was known for, however, remains to be seen. We also don't know if they will have the marketing leverage to generate the same type of sales that Sony did nor do we know if they plan to one day bring the line to other markets. At present, they're only focusing on the Japanese market.
https://www.techspot.com/news/57283-vaio-computer-brand-returns-without-sonys-backing.html
