Analysts expect Sony Corp's new laptop computers to meet with approval from consumers due to the brand's inter-compatibility of devices. Sony creates digital audio, video and computing devices that communicate with each other seamlessly.
"It's a good strategy," said Amy Teng, of tech industry research firm Gartner Dataquest in Taipei.
"Sony customers with audio-video devices can ? transfer and share media thru the Memory Stick, and now they can edit these images on Vaio computers," she said.
The Memory Stick is Sony's proprietary storage card, used like a floppy disk to move pictures and data between devices.
Sony Corp introduced its Vaio notebook computers to the Taiwan market earlier this week, six years after the first Vaio models were launched in Japan.
"[Consumers] who previously wanted to buy Sony notebooks and who couldn't because they were not available here, will welcome this news," said Martha Chen (
Sony users tend to be fans of high-tech products and willing to adopt new technologies before the general public.
"Perhaps you have a Sony digital camcorder or digital camera. This means you are familiar with the Sony brand and trust it, and also more likely to be interested in a Sony notebook," Chen said.
Sony will launch two new Vaio notebooks in Taiwan next Friday. A 16-inch screen Vaio will set buyers back NT$99,800, while a 12-inch model costs NT$74,800.
Sony can command the high price tag due to a super-fast Pentium 4 processor from Intel Corp and features that allow users to download and edit digital video and audio clips.
For example, with one click, users can burn a video clip taken on a Sony digital camcorder onto a DVD.
Sony products already command higher prices than competitors in Taipei.
Sony digital camcorders range in price from NT$26,900 to as much as NT$85,900 in electronics retailer Tsann Kuen 3C (燦坤) on Taipei's Nanking East Road yesterday.
At Thursday's launch of the new notebooks, Yukihasa Kubo, chairman and president of Sony Electronics Marketing Taiwan, pointed out that increasing popularity of broadband Internet in Taiwan was pivotal in the company's decision to market Vaio notebooks here.
Sending and receiving digital video requires broadband Internet.
As of the end of March, 2.13 million Taiwanese log on using broadband services, which is the equivalent to one fourth the on-line population, according to the government-funded Market Intelligence Center.
Sony also cited the increase in the local consumer market for notebooks as an incentive to its launch of Vaios here.
Last year, consumer notebook sales jumped 23 percent while corporate purchases grew 16 percent, Teng said yesterday.
Last year 377,000 notebooks were sold locally, Gartner said, and forecast a 16-percent rise this year.
Another US-based research firm, International Data Corp (IDC) firm is more optimistic, predicting a 24-percent increase this year from its figure of 440,000 units last year.
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