Choosing Android was a brilliant move, says Sony Ericsson CTO

May 11, 2011 5:39 PM
Mikko Torikka

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Times have not been good for Japanese-Swedish cell phone maker Sony Ericsson. The company has been stuck with disappointing figures and mediocre products. Now it is focusing on Android smartphones and that’s paying off, says Jan Uddenfeldt, chief technology officer and head of Sony Ericsson Silicon Valley.

Uddenfeldt made the comments in a speech at Sony Ericsson’s annual Business Innovations Forum at Stanford yesterday. He believes the company can triple its market share in the U.S. in the near future. Right now the company is in the “Others” category in smartphone market share listings.

Globally Sony Ericsson’s market share in smartphones is approximately 5 percent. So there’s room to grow. The company has also been phasing out it’s feature phones and focusing it’s product development on the Android operating system.

Android and a bunch of new Xperia phones will be the key drivers to growth, said Uddenfeldt. The company has announced six Xperia smartphones that run the Android Gingerbread operating system.

One thing the company is counting on is gaming. The Xperia Play is the first PlayStation Certified smartphone, meaning the phone can run downloadable versions of original PlayStation games and use the PlayStation logo. It even has a slide-out PlayStation controller.

Both AT&T and Verizon will sell the phone when it’s released, but there’s still no official release date available.

While Android is the main focus of the company, it will still have a door open for Windows Phone 7. But it won’t be making any products if the operating system doesn’t take off, Uddenfeldt said. (It did previously manufacture phones with Windows Mobile OS.) Sony Ericsson already announced in September that it will abandon the Symbian operating system for good.

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http://twitter.com/sardire Steve Ardire

Jan Uddenfeldt please stop with the brillant move hype…it was the obvious and right move period!
Crowd_Sorcerer

Of course Android was the right move. Of course that is obvious to everyone.But that didn't stop Nokia committing corporate suicide and joining Microsoft's failed Windows Phone. I think Sony-Ericsson is just trying to be polite by saying there is a door open, but not now.
http://twitter.com/laserfloyd Lewis McCrary

WP7 is a great OS. Too soon to write it off.
brian johnson

He is saying this because android was the only obvious move they could have made , Blackberry and Iphone are manufactured exclusively and windows WP7 wasnt around as yet, WP7 is a better os than android, its more modern looking and fluid than any os on the market right now, it makes ios and android feel a bit outdated, its predicted that WP7 will surpass android in two years , even the critics agree that wp7 is an amazing os.
http://ggsoku.com/2011/10/sony-ericsson-wp/ ソニエリCEO「Androidはスペック競争になってしまう。私はWindows Phoneに非常に興味がある」 | ガジェット速報

[...] ソニエリ「Windows Phone 7 ? プラットフォームが軌道に乗るまで扱う気はないよ」 http://venturebeat.com/2011/05/11/sony-ericsson-android/ [...]
http://www.todayinwindows.com/2011/05/sony-ericsson-still-unlikely-to-make-windows-phone-handsets/ Today in Windows » Sony Ericsson still unlikely to make Windows Phone handsets

[...] Silicon Valley, speaking at Sony’s annual Business Innovation Forum, had this to say, according to VentureBeat: While Android is the main focus of the company, it will still have a door open for Windows Phone [...]