SONY VAIO GROUP SEEKING NEW RETAIL TACK ON CE-PC CONVERGENCE
Sony’s Vaio PC group will undertake new initiative to help retailers and salespeople market AV and PC convergence to technologically overwhelmed consumers. Retail “boot camps” and “store-within-store” programs are follow-through on recently unveiled product strategy that will exploit synergies between Sony’s PCs and digital AV products, such as camcorders, DVD recorders and broadband-capable portable music devices (CED July 7 p2).
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Spearheading retail program for Sony IT Products are Mike Abary, dir.-product management for mobile PCs, and Hideyuki Furumi, dir.-Vaio desktop PC marketing. Abary told us new Value Network Retailer (VNR) program was designed to help accounts market Vaio PCs, Clie PDAs, DVD recorders, RoomLink home networking device, advanced audio components and other gear. Abary said select retailers would allocate space for Sony “store within a store” and Sony would train salespeople in San Diego boot camp.
Program will start off in phases, Abary told us. In phase one, dealers on board for VNR kickoff next month are N.Y.C.-based DataVision and J&R Music World. “PC Richard is a consideration for us and there’s mutual interest in the program,” he said: “Talks are moving forward.” POP and merchandising plans for each retailer still are being finalized, he said. Retailers didn’t return our calls for comment. Key part of VNR program is boot camp for salespeople, Abary said: “It’s a pretty comprehensive 2-day training session. We explain Vaio’s position in the marketplace for notebooks and desktops, detail the connectivity story salespeople need to tell, plus we train them for camcorders, digital still cameras and advanced audio products. RoomLink, a wired or wireless networking device, is shown as representative of the whole convergence trend, how consumers can converge CE devices with Vaio.”
After retail sales staffs’ training, they're called “Vaio specialists” and wear a badge ID'ing the person as someone who can answer any and all things Vaio,” Abary said. Specific programs are designed for individual VNR dealers. He said Vaio marketing group worked closely with Sony’s sales organization to identify suitable retailers, and special promotional funding was given to chosen few. “Dealers are excited at the extra attention and the first boot camp went very well,” Abary said.
For phase 2, one potential candidate is MicroCenter, Abary said. “They have a directed sales force and we'll train them to clearly articulate the value within the Sony family of products.”
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Sony will recall 18,000 Vaio laptops worldwide owing to risk of electrical shock caused by faulty modems, company said Thurs. Models in question constitute recently introduced FR series, called FRV in U.S., where 3,000 were sold. Other markets affected are Japan (13,000) and Europe (2,000). Sony said user could receive shock similar to that from static electricity if modem were attached to phone line and user was touching metal part of PC when outside call came in. It also seems that faulty modem can disable user’s phone line if laptop is running on AC power and connected to grounded AC peripheral such as PC monitor. Company said no injuries had been reported so far and complaints were few. Sony estimated preliminary cost of recall at $4.25 million. It’s notifying registered U.S. customers by e-mail and said advisory might be posted on its Web site, but none could be found as of Thurs. afternoon. Laptop recall follows last year’s recall of 40,000 Vaio desktops in Canada, Japan and U.S. owing to faulty power supply.