Brier Dudley's Blog

Brier Dudley offers a critical look at technology and business issues affecting the Northwest.

February 10, 2008 11:00 AM

Windows Mobile scores big win with Sony Ericsson

Microsoft is announcing a lot of things at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, but a clear highlight is today's news that Sony Ericsson has chosen Windows Mobile for a line of smartphones that it's debuting at the conference.

Sony's showing the first model -- a touchscreen with a slideout keyboard and 3 megapixel camera -- that will go on sale in the holiday season.

Of the top five phone manufacturers -- Samsung, Motorola, LG, Nokia and Sony Ericsson -- four are now making Windows Mobile phones and all five are using at least some Microsoft technology, noted Scott Rockfeld, group product manager for the Mobile Communications Business.

Digg | Newsvine

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Posted by larson

8:17 AM, Feb 11, 2008

Sony Ericsson has officially lost their way. Their phone hardware story: build a ton of phones and maybe one will be a hit -has failed.

On the high end, the practice of only supporting a $400 phone for 6 months and then forgetting about it is over. Patching major bugs (due to all the hardware offerings) after you ship is fine to a certain extent but when you stop fixing offerings such as the P800, P910, M600 (insert all SE top phones) after 3-6 months, other phones become more attractive...and not just the next upgrade from SE.

Nothing these 2 companies will produce will come close to the level of interaction that Apple has with the iPhone. It's the story of the Zune all over again except Microsoft isn't making the hardware. In the mobile space you have to build the hardware yourself and you have to write really good, lightweight software to match...

Who cares about exchange/office compatibility if your phone is crashing all the time, losing it's internal clock, rebooting itself, has a crap interface.....