Sony’s VAIO brand is dead, but the support lives on

Sad news for Sony today, as it sells off its computer division and retires the VAIO name, at least for the meantime.

Rumoured for the past week, Sony has finally announced that it will be selling the VAIO business to Japan Industrial Partners, a name we’ve never heard of, but will apparently focus on bringing computers to the Japanesemarket under a new name.

Unfortunately, that means there’s no new Sony VAIO PC development from here on in, a shame especially when you consider that the VAIO Pro was one of the better new Ultrabooks with Intel’s fourth-generations chips inside, and Sony’s other developments like the Duo and the Fit all had neat concepts that transformed the way we were thinking about hybrid tablet computers.

The good news is that customers of Sony laptops will still have support, with a representative for the company telling us that “Sony will continue its after-sales (in warranty and out of warranty) services, support and spare parts supply in accordance with Australian & New Zealand consumer laws and regulations.”

We suppose the positive part for the consumer in all of this is that in the next few months, it’s likely we’ll see some Sony PC sales coming up, so if you’re in the market for a new laptop, now might be your time to start saving, provided you don’t mind knowing it’s the last of the VAIO generation.