Microsoft & Sony Ericsson Enter Association
Sony Ericsson on Sunday announced a new premium handset intended at capturing the web meeting market, blending multimedia with mobile web message in its first product using Microsoft Corp.’s operating system.
The Xperia X1 will open in the second half of 2008 and will be sold widespread, including in the United States. It marks the first time Sony Ericsson is using Microsoft Windows Mobile in a departure from its collaboration with Symbian, an open operating system that’s partly owned by Sony Ericsson.
Decision-making said their focus was on the user experience, not the operating system, and said that many Sony Ericsson signature features, including a original nine-panel interface, had been built on top of the Windows operating system. Sony Ericsson managerial Steve Walker said Microsoft Mobile was the “ideal” platform for the X1.
“In the case of the X1, Microsoft gives us and chance to build on,” Walker said. But he said that did not necessarily mean that succeeding handsets in the Xperia sub-brand would be based on Microsoft. The handset features an arc sliding mechanism with a 3-inch-wide DVD-quality video show, a full keyboard next to a touch screen, and optical device for navigation.
Sony Ericsson executives turn down to give pricing on the handset or say how many it plans to ship. The partnership was announced on the eve of the Mobile World Congress, the largest wireless industry conference bringing together more than 50,000 industry executives from some 1,300 companies.
“With Sony Ericsson we are now working with the top five handset makers around the world,” Microsoft product manager John Stark weather said in an interview before the Barcelona wireless conference. Samsung, Motorola Inc. and LG all ship cell phones with Microsoft Mobile, while Nokia Corp., the largest handset maker by volume, incorporates some Microsoft technology, including Windows Media Player. Microsoft expects to ship 20 million new phones using Windows Mobile in the economic year that ends June 30.
