Sony hopes for digital revolution

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To prove its bona fides, the VAIO includes a number of competitive features: a 166-MHz Pentium, 16MB of RAM, a 2.1GB hard drive, 28.8-kbps modem, MPEG decoding capabilities, an 8X CD-ROM drive, and a software bundle that includes Internet access. And, of course, a Sony-signature design, in hues of gray or violet.

"This is more of a user computer. It seems to be configured not as a workhorse but for consumer uses--surfing the Net, doing research, games, word processing, email, things like that," Loomis said of the VAIO, estimated to retail for $2,000 to $3,000. "It's powerful enough, but not out of people's price range."

Sony also designed its computer with the idea of eventually capitalizing on its television technology. A primary obstacle to the convergence of PCs and TVs is the illegibility of computer text on a standard screen from sofa-viewing distances, something Sony might be able to fix.

Sony introduces the VAIO PC

"They have to leverage the television side of things. Who needs another standard 14- or 15-inch monitor?" Brown asked. "You have to contribute where you have the most advantage: 25- to 55-inch TVs, things you can actually see."

Sony expresses confidence that it can add the PC to its long string of consumer successes. This is, after all, the company that gave us the Walkman.

But it is also, others note, the company that gave us Betamax--and refused to abandon the hapless video recorder even as it was being ridiculed as the electronic equivalent of the Edsel.

Such stubbornness--to the point of arrogance, some would say--was also seen during the early years of Sony's foray into the movie business, a controversial attempt to lock up the home entertainment market from studio to store shelf that unwittingly helped U.S. companies regain the upper hand in technology.

The acquisition of CBS Records in 1988 and Columbia and TriStar studios the following year soon became an albatross for Sony, which spent much energy and capital trying to meld the volatile elements of entertainment with the traditional sensibilities of a Japanese corporation, a relationship that many characterized as a match made in hell.