Sony Laptops Get ‘Fresh Start’
Sony’s offering a Fresh Start earlier than we expected on its TZ series notebooks. The Fresh Start program allows Sony customers to order notebooks that are free of free of trial software and promotional offers.
Sony’s notebooks are notorious for being bogged down with trial offers and applications many users don’t want. This is especially problematic on notebooks that don’t have as much capacity or horsepower as desktop replacement and entertainment notebooks, such as the TZ series.
The Frest Start program showed up on SonyStyle.com under the TZ2000’s and TZ2500’s configuration page as a $49 option. The $49 was to offset the revenue Sony receives for loading trial software and offers on the notebooks. People reacted very negatively to the $49 charge and Sony’s Mike Ybarra quickly yanked the $49 charge after several bloggers, users and reporters complained that the charge was ridiculous.
The Fresh Start program is now available at no charge on the TZ200 and TZ2500 when configured with Vista Business. Fresh Start will most likely roll out on other business VAIO notebooks starting in June.
Sony’s Xavier Lauwaert first told Notebooks.com about the Start program last month at Sony’s open house last month. I also talked to Mike Ybarra about the program at lunch and $50 seemed to be the consensus of what a bloatware-free machine would be worth to the customer and enough to offset the lost revenue from software partners.
Other PC vendors, such as Dell, offer consumer notebooks without the bloatware by re-badging them as small businesss notebooks. Dell’s Vostro series is virtually identical to its Inspiron series notebooks.
The bloatware issue is definitely a hot-topic amongst PC manufacturers, which try to deliver the lowest possible price to consumers while still turning a profit. A lot of consumers are asking for bloatware-free notebooks, but based on the initial reaction to Sony’s Fresh Start program, few will be willing to pay any price for cleaning up the desktop.