While there are no details on naming or products, Hidemi Moue, chief executive officer of Japan Industrial Partners (which owns VAIO) says the deal is expected to be announced by the end of March. VAIO was earlier a part of Sony Corporation and spun off in a massive restructuring exercise. The news of this super merger emerged after Toshiba confirmed it was not considering withdrawing from making PCs Toshiba has been bleeding big bucks in its PC manufacturing division and has already cut around 7,800 jobs in December amidst an accounting scandal. At the time, Toshiba revealed it would “consider alliances third party companies” as an option, strongly hinting it was looking to partner with other Japanese PC makers. Any deal between VAIO, Toshiba, and Fujitsu would further confirm the consolidation occurring in the PC industry. As of now, the world PC and laptop market is controlled by the big three, HP, Dell, and Lenovo with Japan’s NEC controlling the market share in home market.
