Sony Ericsson joins Open Handset Alliance (Android)
Published by Rafe Blandford at 16:39 GMT, December 9th 2008
Sony Ericsson today announced it is joining the Open Handset Alliance (OHA). OHA is the group behind the Android platform championed by Google. Sony Ericsson says its membership will 'complment its existing Open OS strategy which is based on Symbian and Windows Mobile'.
Sony Ericsson is currently promoting its Windows Mobile powered Xperia X1 and is expected to produce its first Symbian Foundation based handsets (based on S60) in the second half of 2009. Sony Ericsson looks to be following Samsung's agnostic approach to open platforms.
Press release extract:
Sony Ericsson today announced the extension of its portfolio strategy to include support for the Open Handset Alliance
"Sony Ericsson is excited to announce its membership of the Open Handset Alliance and confirm its intention to develop a handset based on the Android platform," said Rikko Sakaguchi, CVP and head of Creation and Development at Sony Ericsson. "We believe Sony Ericsson can bring a wealth of experience in making consumer focused multimedia handsets with new user experience to the Alliance drawing on the successes of the Walkman and Cyber-shot sub-brands. Sony Ericsson is a strong supporter of open operating systems and we believe the Open Handset Alliance offers an exciting opportunity for a new and unique user experience only Sony Ericsson can deliver."
Membership of the Open Handset Alliance will complement the company's existing Open OS strategy which is based on the Symbian and Windows Mobile platforms.
Categories: Industry
Platforms: General
News Discussion
chlettn
I wonder if they'll keep using all three smartphone platforms. Developing and maintaining 4 platforms (counting SE's own featurephone OS as well) seems a bit much for a company of SE's size...
JimH
Looks like they're trying the Motorola strategy of jumping onto every available bandwagon. Look how well that's played out for Motorola...
I'm starting to getting seriously worried about the future of SE, it appears that there's no-one awake at the helm.
ares
Well...Samsung does the same, with good results...so we shall see
Unregistered
Have to agree with JimH, this smells like Motorola's panic-stricken move from OS to OS in an attempt to revive their fortunes. SE might need to hedge their bets (after betting on the wrong Symbian horse), but 3 operating systems seems like they are spreading themselves a little too thin.
Unregistered
Good idea. Android will be better for SE than the Nokia controlled touch S60 mess in the "open" Symbian.
rbrunner
Looking at the performance of SE in the last few years, I come to the conclusion that even managing *two* OS's (proprietary feature phone + UIQ) seemingly was too much for SE's management. The had a technological lead of several *years* in the realm of one of today's hottest technologies - touchscreen-based UI's for smartphones - but could not get the thing to fly. Nokia had to give the poor victim (UIQ) the finishing blow.
And now those SE managers are "excited" about the prospect to juggle four OS's at the same time? Well, yes, if nothing else this will get pretty interesting.
Unregistered
Is it just my imagination, or have troll comments risen sharply since the iphone was announced? I always hoped the mobile space would remain free from the horrific quagmire that surrounds console threads, but it seems to be that there are those with no interest in a particular site, but will visit it for the purpose of trolling. However, Steve, you would be in a position of authority on this one, have you noticed any change in the random negative symbian remarks on these forums since the iphone announcement? Or is this something that has always been occurring?
ogami_ito
In the longer run (1 year plus), Android posses the biggest threat to Symbian...for greater a threat than Apple with its proprietary locked-down product, and WinMo, which currently lags behind all. But as for SE, they have not shown skill and prowess lately. SE adopting Android is less a threat than, say, if Samsung or LG adopts it. Or if 10 different no-name Chinese companies learn how to make decent phones and market those to the World. And that is where Symbian needs to focus in order to head-off Android.
snoyt
Quote:
Originally Posted by ogami_ito
In the longer run (1 year plus), Android posses the biggest threat to Symbian...
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Agreed, luckily Symbian is nearly open source. Then again. Linux phones might even annex those attractive parts of Symbian for it's own code and vice versa. No doubt in the long run we won't know and care what was there first, the chicken (Symbian) or the egg (Linux). With the chastity belt off for Symbian, who knows what childeren are born. No doubt the mobile game will be in the future about standardisation, supplemental software and GUI implementations. I presume Microsoft will go Linux (they will never admit to Apple's choice being better) with Apple having chosen FreeBSD (used for OS-X) . The most mature OS's will rule the world. In other words some flavor of Unix.
slitchfield
Re: trolling. Trolls have always been around, though yes, there's been some increase since the iPhone was launched. But, even as a Symbian fan, I can appreciate that the iPhone is pretty wonderful in its own way - so in some respects some criticism from the iPhone world is actually worth listening to.
As usual, these things come down to common sense. Realising that no one device is perfect, that all have major flaws and that there's more to life than phones. 8-)
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