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Four months after announcing they were acquiring UIQ, Sony Ericsson invited other phone vendors to become shareholders of the Symbian interface (press release), to ensure a strong alternative to the S60 platform for everybody and to improve its financial position. Software, telecom and IT consultant OVUM questions the need of this and suggests an alternative: opening its source. They point to several different advantages that make it sounds like a good advise, but probably so did the advise of opening to investors. There’s no “best” strategy, and we wish Sony Ericsson the best of luck with theirs. After all, by not open sourcing a tiny bit of code nor even basing it’s strategy on third party applications, we all know what Apple is going to achieve with the iPhone and succesive iPhone nano’s, micro’s, etc. Here are some extracts from the article:
It could be perceived that Sony Ericsson is trying to have its cake and eat it, by wanting the strategic advantage of owning its own smartphone platform but at the same time wanting other phone vendors to subsidise it. (…)
[Open sourcing] UIQ would also benefit from developments made by other phone vendors using the UIQ framework, lowering its operating costs. OEMs could then make use of these developments without sacrificing their own differentiation. A move to open source by UIQ would also put Nokia under pressure to re-evaluate S60 software licences and fees.
Riding on the success and momentum created by the shiny Z610, Sony Ericsson announced a 2nd mirror-finished clamshell model - the Z310.
The Z310 should be seen as a low-end phone targeted at the fashion concious and youth crowd. Besides the shiny finish, the phone is able to colour-code contacts. The front of the phone is polished to a perfect shine, with a screen (similar to the one found on the Z610) and new dedicated icons hidden discretely beneath the surface. Coloured light effects can also be assigned to contacts in the phonebook, allowing you to know who’s calling with a simple glance. To inject more fun into the phone, the Z310 also allows the user “…to set the look and feel of the menu and screen display to match the time of the day.” Other features include VGA camera, MP3 support, Bluetooth connectivity and Picture Blogging.
The Z310 is a Triple band/Edge/GPRS 900/1800/1900 handset and comes in Jet Set Black, Blush Bronze and Lush Pink. Expect to see it in stores from Q1 2007. [Via Kauppalehti and Golem.de]
Sony Ericsson is relying on user-generated content to promote their latest Walkman Phone, the W950i. Participants stand to win a chance perform with British radio DJ Zane Lowe live during his Tour, or a brand new phone.
Created by Iris Experience, the campaign calls for users to upload their own remixes of songs, as well as listen to the work of others, at Zane Lowe’s official website. The site’s users will then vote for the best remix and winner (who created the track) wins the chance to play (remix) with Zane himself on the final night of the Sony Ericsson sponsored event, DJ Zane Lowe’s Home Taping Tour. Runners up wouldn’t go ‘home’ empty handed, either: they’ll get a brand new W950i. What’s almost cooler, ringtones and other contents will be available to the users at the gigs via Bluetooth. [Via BrandRepublic and Zane Lowe]
“Nokia shamed by Sony Ericsson in battle for margins” is the title of a report of London-based consultant agency ARCchart in which the differences in philosophy of the eternal enemies Nokia and SE are summarized: while Nokia has veered towards share and shows a strong growth in low-end sales and moderate in high-end, Sony Ericsson has boomed high-end sales while keeping one of the best mid-range portfolios, thanks —in my opinion— key points like the interface, power of the music and camera functions, and the appeal of the Walkman and Cybershot brands.
But aside from the cameraphone sales, what’s interesting is to see how many people actually take photos with them and therefore to see which phones give a better “digital camera” experience. The graphic above made with Flickr stats shows a competition among several Sony Ericssons and Nokias as the most used to take serious shots. We see the K750 as the stable king of cameraphones and the K800 rapidly gaining popularity along with the also relatively nwe Nokia N73.
Which brings us to Quesabesde.com’s comparative (in Spanish) of these two contenders to the K750’s throne, focusing on the cameras, of which I translate some interesting conclusions after the jump:
Less than two weeks after the announcement by Sony Ericsson of the support of Sony’s Locationfree for UIQ, Sling Media shows off compatibility of their wireless personal video broadcasting gadget (the Slingbox) for our Symbian 3G or Wifi enabled smartphones. After the jump you will find a pretty cool video of a W950 playing the different TV channels and DVD’s of, and controlling, a remote setup. [Via Techeblog and Engadgetmobile]
An industry source some hours ago told none other than Reuters that Sony Ericsson is working on a super slim high end Walkman model with camera (or Cybershot with MP3, if you will), whose codename is taken from Japaneese tennis player Ai Sugiyama (the original story says the phone itself is inspired by her, but we just don’t get that). Everybody seems to be calling it the Motorola RAZR-killer, but the more featured Sony Ericsson M600 already went that slim, at 15mm versus the RAZR’s 14, and the RAZR was a clamshell anyway. It is supposed to be unveiled in Q1 2007, and will be available in black and silver. Check inside this post for some suspiciously cardboard-looking spyshots. Anybody want to bet for any Swedish tennis player for the next rumour? [Via Reuters and Se-nse, thanks Bee87 for the pics]
The Spanish Television and Press Graphic Reporters Association (accronym banned) has awarded the K800 the distinction of the Best Cameraphone of 2006, as an outstanding product that helps the professional photographer optimize his job.
In the United Kingdom, Sony Ericsson has also been awarded by consumers with the Best Manufacturer Of The Year award, the Best Mobile Phone Of The Year award to the K800 —which also was voted the “Readers’ Dream Phone“—, and the Best Music Phone award to the W810.
Finally, the German edition of the Connect magazine granted, with readers’s votes, the awards of Best Cameraphone to the K800 (45,2% of the votes, and the apparently-not-so-old K750 being in third place), Best Music Phone to the W810 (with 59,9% of the votes), Best 3G Phone to the W900, and Best PDA Phone to the P990 (hmm…).
To summarize, Sony Ericsson nowadays seems to be losing the “best phone with wheels and facial hair” category only, or whatever. Unstoppable! [Via Spanish Press Release]
Sony Ericsson, in a surprising movement (at least to me), has decided to acquire the UIQ Technologies division of Symbian. They must have their reasons, but can’t stop thinking one of them surely is the multiple critics that P990 has gotten since its launch. Until now, UIQ couldn’t focus its development in any particular manufacturer, because Symbian is a company owned by multiple cellphone companies, and being so, they must develop a standard product which can be implemented in multiple and very different devices from different brands with minimum modifications software-wise. This approach has its advantages, but it doesn’t come without drawbacks, and one of them is that the interface must work in different kind of terminals, which limits it quite a deal. Having full control over UIQ’s development will enable Sony Ericsson to custom the interface to their likings, making it as good as the one in the rest of the Sony Ericsson terminals.
Another question to pay attention to is whether this could affect UIQ’s popularity between developers. Right now, there are only 3 UIQ 3.0 terminals in the market: the M600, W950 and P990. This is a very low number compared to UIQ 2.x, which was adopted not only by Sony Ericsson, but also by Motorola and BenQ, to name a couple more. The difference translates in the number of UIQ 3.0 users in the market, which is quite lower than UIQ 2.x back at its time. And number of potential users is a very (if not the most) important factor for a software developer, when it comes to decide whether to develop software for that platform or not. And UIQ, without third-party software, doesn’t worth much. Sony Ericsson claims that the rest of the manufacturers will be able to acquire Symbian UIQ licenses just like they have been doing until this moment. The real question is if they will want to do that, once Sony Ericsson decide to adapt UIQ more and more to their devices.
The transaction is expected to be completed over the next few months.
Sorry, third-parties, all JAVA-enabled Sony Ericssons now have official support from Microsoft to run their new Windows Live Messenger Mobile application. MSN/Windows Messenger site Mess.be found this goodie in a chineese MSN website. Well, actually, functionality may be a little below some other JAVA clients, but if you’re like me and only need your contact list and being able to chat with some few emoticons, you’ll take this Windows Live themed instant messenger over anything else. Apparently these download links (be careful to chose the version for your model) are completely legal and free to download, but after a couple of months they will stop working unless you pay a small unknown monthly fee. Hmm, let’s just enjoy it in the meantime and we’ll talk again in January. Check some screenshots of it running on K800 inside this entry. [Via Mess.be].
If your exact model number isn’t listed here, make sure your phone supports JAVA and then download the version of models using the same screen pixel size.
They’ve gone nuts: look what Sony Ericsson is preparing during the SE Championship Tour for the nights of November 9th and 10th in Madrid, Spain, as the first in a series around the world: black tennis court illuminated solely with UV light, 8 players wearing neon clothes, a bright ball and background live DJ music from no others than Groove Armada and Darren Emerson, as well as neon-wear catwalk fashion show from Ruben Gomez Navarro, all deep into the night. I’m not exaggerating a bit: in Darren Emerson’s words: “I’ve DJ’d in interesting places and situations and also weird ones, but this is going to be the most amazing of all”.
Free tickets are available to Spanish residents via SMS so if you’re going to be around the capital by next week, check out our spanish post on this topic for more details, or go to Nighttennis.es. No word on what is going to be the next city to welcome another Night of the Dancing Neon Mobile Phone Freak.
Sony Ericsson is back to the Smartphones Big Guys’ scene, thanks to the P990, M600 and W950. The company has re-entered, after a long absence, at fourth place in the top five smart mobile devices companies in the EMEA market, with a 3% share. This also has had a positive effect on Symbian’s market share in smartphones, which is now at 78.7% (it was 76.6% last year).
Straight out from the French Riviera, Noreve offers a series of high quality leather cases for almost all current mid-high Sony Ericssons, for those who don’t mind losing some portability in favor of protecting the precious device inside while adding a touch of style and personalization with the many leather colors available. I say losing portability because after trying these with my P990, it just won’t fit any comfortably in trousers any tighter than 50 Cent’s. It shouldn’t be a big problem for smaller models’ users though —the P990 itself isn’t very pocket-friendly anyway—, but it’s fair to say that these cases add considerable bulk to your phone, not to mention if you even attach the huge belt clip. This belt clip led McCoy, reviewer of the black M600/W950 and red P990 cases, to find a funny problem with the back screw, which you can check in the video (in all Superhandz style) after the jump, along with photos of those and my black and white P990 cases.
Have you found some interesting news, photos or information? Don't hesitate to tell us by email to Lgcc at clubsonyericsson.com.
Four months after announcing they were acquiring UIQ, Sony Ericsson invited other phone vendors to become shareholders of the Symbian interface (press release), to ensure a strong alternative to the S60 platform for everybody and to improve its financial position. Software, telecom and IT consultant OVUM questions the need of this and suggests an alternative: opening its source. They point to several different advantages that make it sounds like a good advise, but probably so did the advise of opening to investors. There’s no “best” strategy, and we wish Sony Ericsson the best of luck with theirs. After all, by not open sourcing a tiny bit of code nor even basing it’s strategy on third party applications, we all know what Apple is going to achieve with the iPhone and succesive iPhone nano’s, micro’s, etc. Here are some extracts from the article:
Sony Ericsson is relying on user-generated content to promote their latest Walkman Phone, the W950i. Participants stand to win a chance perform with British radio DJ 
The Spanish Television and Press Graphic Reporters Association (accronym banned) has awarded the K800 the distinction of the Best Cameraphone of 2006, as an outstanding product that helps the professional photographer optimize his job. 
Sony Ericsson is back to the Smartphones Big Guys’ scene, thanks to the P990, M600 and W950. The company has re-entered, after a long absence, at fourth place in the top five smart mobile devices companies in the EMEA market, with a 3% share. This also has had a positive effect on Symbian’s market share in smartphones, which is now at 78.7% (it was 76.6% last year).