Taiwan-based Commercial Times reported that HTC has received ODM orders to make Windows Mobile smartphones for Sony Ericsson. The news goes on, suggesting that the first such devices will hit the market in the second half of 2008… Let’s see what we can pull out from this, shall we.
First, you should know Sony Ericsson now owns UIQ Technology, the developer of the UIQ software platform that works on top of Symbian OS and which is used in the smartphones manufactured by the Swedish-Japanese company. Why would they want to go against their relatively recent acquisition? To mimic Motorola and make phones for virtually all platforms? Nah…
On the other hand, with this kind of move Sony Ericsson could pretty quickly release a number of enterprise friendly devices and get that piece of the market. At the moment, Sony Ericsson has a single business-centric smartphone, P1i, and “now so last year” P990i and M600i. Apparently, the M600i’s successor is coming, but that’s still just two devices. By partnering with HTC, Sony Ericsson could easily release 3-5 new business-centric devices with new form factors HTC is using (i.e. slide-out keyboard). Yeah, they will run the Windows Mobile, but I guess enterprises love that.
The conclusion – while I do see a reason for Sony Ericsson to go this route, I highly doubt they’ll do it. Or that’s just me wishing they’ll release more Symbian smartphones soon enough. What do you think?
[Via: the::unwired]