Sony Ericsson and Windows Mobile
The latest news is that Sony Ericsson have placed a significant (1 million unit) order with HTC for Windows Mobile Smartphones. When I first heard the rumours, I really thought this wouldn’t happen. After all, Sony Ericsson is a Symbian shareholder and recently become the parent company for UIQ Technology.
However, if you think things through it does make some sense. It allows Sony Ericsson…
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to enter the US market where Symbian phones have a poor market share.
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to increase its enterprise market where Windows Mobile has a greater following.
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to hedge it’s bets and not rely solely on UIQ and Symbian for its smartphone OS.
Sony Ericsson initially had a hard time bringing new UIQ 3.0 based phones to market what with delays and buggy initial firmware. Doing less in house (ie outsourcing completely to HTC), doing less customisation and not relying on a separate UI layer (UIQ) might just make things simpler - but then the final phone software and specification will probably end up looking like any other Windows Mobile Smartphone. I expect the USP will be in the hardware design which is reported to be extremely thin and eye-catching.
I see this as a major win for Microsoft. Up until now, Motorola was the only tier one OEM to take up Windows Mobile. If the resultant devices become successful then this could become a tipping point for Windows Mobile. What might initially be seen as Sony Ericsson trying to break into the US market has the potential of allowing Microsoft to significantly break into the EMEA market.
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