09 May 2008

Weekend Reading: Sony Ericsson
To Dump Windows Mobile And Move Focus
On Symbian And Android For High End Devices!?

It's certainly been a difficult year, Ericsson chief executive Carl-Henric Svanberg said that they are looking to sell their share in Sony Ericsson and partner Sony would be a "logical buyer" for Ericsson's half of handset making joint venture Sony Ericsson, the Financial Times reported on Thursday although both companies told the paper they were ready to inject more money into the venture if needed.

The Sony Ericsson partnership has produced several rumours of in-fighting between the companies, particularly in the case of the much-rumoured PSP phone and its not very successful Windows Mobile powered Xperia X1 which is launched as company’s flagship model.

From other hand, in an interview with the London's Financial Times, Hideki Komiyama, head of Sony Ericsson has confirmed that a PSP phone could be on the horizon and that he believes that Japanese-Swedish joint venture will be able to use Sony's powerful PlayStation brand for a range of gaming phones!

Sony Ericsson also suffers from the chronic indecision about the mobile platforms, last month they said it would stick to its plans to use three different mobile operating systems, Symbian, Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows but in the midst of recession and shrinking cellphone demand its three-way bet is seen as too costly in the market and Sony Ericsson's chief Hideki Komiyama told the FT the company may cut the number.

Apparently, Sony Ericsson may be preparing to dump Windows Mobile and move focus on forthcoming Symbian Foundation OSD and the Google’s Android platform, calling the X1 "a kind of experiment" which leads to conclusion that Xperia brand with Windows Mobile OS is doomed and that they’ll never release its successor.