Sony Ericsson moving to Windows Mobile?

Although we can't really see Sony Ericsson dropping all that R&D into Symbian and UIQ only to jump ship to the Borg, the always-reliable Commercial Times is reporting that HTC just won a million-unit OEM order for Sony Ericsson's first Windows Mobile handset. Details are still sketchy, but apparently the device will ship in the "second half of 2008." Take this one with a huge grain of salt for now, but we'll keep our ears to the ground.

[Via The Unwired]

[Zach J @ Sep 19th 2007 6:16PM]

Worst news I've heard in a while

[Brian @ Sep 19th 2007 6:33PM]

Maybe the worst news ever.....

WM5 and WM6 are the worst two phone OS's I have ever used.

[MatthewJ @ Sep 19th 2007 7:17PM]

Best news *I've* heard in a while. WM5 was a pleasure to use when I had my Dell Axim 51v and the only thing I really missed on it was the phone bit. I used Skype Mobile for a while, but finding a Wifi hotspot in the UK isn't very easy.

Can't wait to see what a combination of HTC and Sony Ericsson can come up with!

[E71 @ Sep 19th 2007 9:44PM]

Actually, things are getting interesting. More and more cellphone manufacturers are moving towards Windows Mobile. Besides, you noticed all the high-end phones with the most features are all WM phones... take a look at the HTC Kaiser for example.

[CharlieX @ Sep 19th 2007 6:20PM]

I spent two terrible months with a Blackjack and that abortion WM5. Never. Again.

[Jesse S @ Sep 19th 2007 8:00PM]

That wasn't real Windows Mobile...

You cannot compare touchscreen windows mobile with smartphone windows mobile. There's no contest.

[derek @ Sep 19th 2007 6:21PM]

I'm calling B.S. on this one...

[Totalfixation @ Sep 19th 2007 6:28PM]

why would you call bs on that? symbiam is a dying OS, its only supported by two major brands which are sony and nokia, but nevertheless most of there apps are incompatible with each other. Seem more reasonable to go with windows mobile. At least they can fill a gap from people going to another company because they lack WM OS.

[Yuvamani @ Sep 19th 2007 6:34PM]

And also ...
BlackBerryOs which is a dying os supported by one brand blacberry
OSX is a dying os supported by one company Apple
PalmOs (Garnet and the PalmLinuxFrankenMonster) is a dying OS supported by one company Palm


Last I checked Symbian WAS the leadign smartphone OS. Sony is just keeping its options open like Palm did with Windows Mobile.

[L @ Sep 19th 2007 6:42PM]

Totalfixation: Nokia is strong behind Symbian, Samsung and LG are starting to ship Symbian models (there are quite a few new Symbian devices from Samsung recently, more in one wave than they ever made yet) and Motorola recently rejoined the Symbian group...so, basically, every single one of the biggest five handset manufacturers have Symbian handsets in their line-up, but only three of them have WM handsets (and in most cases, less of them) - go figure...

Symbian might be a non-starter in the US, but in Europe and Asia it's definitely the most prevalent OS on handsets, by a HUGE margin...

[Totalfixation @ Sep 19th 2007 7:44PM]

I believe many mobile phone companies are utilizing Symbian more then ever, but be as it may, Microsoft has been picking up a lot steam. One example is HTC having almost all of there handset supporting windows mobile base. With other iterations of Windows Vista OS on their portable devices. It's a sign that the consumers want Windows Mobile, at least in the US. 2 years ago the name HTC would have been see as something of a after market product or cheap knock off a cell phone. Seeing that Sony has awarded HTC the license on providing OEM headset units with Windows mobile is more evident. Also majority if not all cell phone companies license exchange/Intellisync/activesync from Microsoft. Microsoft knows how to play the game and they are smart enough to convince that Windows mobile is the right choice. Windows Mobile just has a better name recognition to the main stream consumer. Its just a matter of time before all the companies will support at least one version of Windows mobile base handset. The only reason why i see Symbian doing good is because they are the only alternative outside of the US, and Microsoft hasn't been focusing there attention beyond the scope of the US market. Eventually that will change.


Ps: i hope no one brings up palm OS. we all know where that is going.

[2shae @ Sep 19th 2007 6:31PM]

iPhone here I come!!!

[Duscrom @ Sep 20th 2007 1:12AM]

I'd agree, except iPhone is probably the worst competition for Smartphones then Windows Mobile. WinMo ain't perfect.. by any means.. but at least it's open.. and has some really great applications. The iPhone is a great consumer device, but is inferior to Symbian and WinMo6 out of useability.

[prokanda @ Sep 19th 2007 6:38PM]

Haters... just running off the anti-MS tone that Engadget puts forth. I'm on my second windows mobile phone and I love it. Easy to make free ringers, tons of apps, compatible with my computer, industrial strength support and integration, and neither of them have crashed very much (even with hacks to get around Verizon's tampering). I like Sony's designs (and htc's for that matter), so I can only see this as a step in the right direction. Sounds like Sony is finally getting out of at least SOME of its proprietary stump: replaceable hard drive in the ps3, music players with more codecs and now the possiblity of phones that can actually be useful and integrate? Awesome.

[greenlight @ Sep 19th 2007 6:47PM]

Sony Ericsson is not Sony. Sony Ericsson have always been quite open, their phones support popular formats (mp3, unlike Sonys old ATRAC players), don't force copy protection on you (has support "squirting" mp3s via bluetooth since the beginning), etc. The choice of UIQ made sense at the time, this was in 2000, before Windows Mobile and friends. UIQ is still not Sony Ericsson proprietary, Motorola is releasing phones with it, I believe some Japanese phones use it as well.

[Mitch @ Sep 19th 2007 6:40PM]

MS will eventually get WM done right(as it is horrible right now). Then they will take over the market as they did with PC's. Apple is making the same mistake now that they did in the 80's by not licensing there OS to OEMs

[SubGenius @ Sep 19th 2007 10:10PM]

No Apple is doing the same thing they did to the MP3 player market.
Creating a compelling solution and marketing the heck out of it.
In 2 years you will probably be able to buy iPhones for $149 - $199.
Microsoft's WindowsMobile partners will build their zunePhones cheaper and with more features and consumers couldn't care less.
Apple's solution will be sexy, slick and just plain work.

[greenlight @ Sep 19th 2007 6:41PM]

Perhaps they're going to move their regular handsets to UIQ 3.2, and their smartphones to Windows Mobile?

[L @ Sep 19th 2007 6:55PM]

UIQ phones *ARE* smartphones...

[greenlight @ Sep 20th 2007 2:14AM]

Yeah but regular phones are getting smarter, and soon all phones will need a "smartphone" OS. Just look at Japan, where Symbian is in lots phones not marketed as specifically "smartphones".

[jilie @ Sep 19th 2007 7:00PM]

Windows Mobile has lots of features! i like it!

[LJKelley @ Sep 19th 2007 7:11PM]

Yay... my favourite mobile brand with my favourite OS :) I'll believe it when I see it though...

[boisvert00 @ Sep 19th 2007 7:12PM]

seriously i will never tire of the star trek references on this website

[Karan @ Sep 19th 2007 7:29PM]

Sony Ericsson PDA Phone?

[webon @ Sep 19th 2007 8:59PM]

uhmm was Ur Q real? means me uhmm Pseries??

[webon @ Sep 19th 2007 9:16PM]

uhmm was Ur Q real? means me uhmm Pseries??

[Brandon @ Sep 19th 2007 7:55PM]

I actually like WM6, although it seems like the guys over at xda-devs put out better builds than MS themselves...

[michael @ Sep 19th 2007 8:00PM]

This is great news. I love WM for the fact that it can do lots of functions, kind of like on the PC, but on the mobile phone. It also does a better job with connecting to the computer than other mobile OS's.

The only thing that stops WM from being good, is that it's usually limited to a rather small screen.

So that kind of means, squashing an interface into a screen to accommodate it. That's too bad.

Hopefully, WM will get bigger-screened phones, or a better way of navigating across functions, without being squashed. I'm hoping that it comes in Windows Mobile Photon.

[Richard @ Sep 19th 2007 9:05PM]

I call Bull too.

SE Just re purchased and folded in all of UIQ.

SE are one of the original shareholders in Symbian (NOK, SE, PON)

I used a UIQ phone (P910a) for a long time and it was the best phone I have ever had. Now I use an 8525 and am waiting...ATT...for the 8925 simply because the P1's capabilities cannot fully be used here.

The only thing I can imagine is that Sony has teamed up with M$ to save the Zune and take on iEverything....and that means Walkman Phones running WM 6.

Who knows?

[nikster @ Sep 20th 2007 2:59AM]

I have a P990i and it's the worst phone I ever had, not in the least because of the UIQ / Symbian OS. Things simply don't make any sense, functions are randomly stuffed into random menus, user interface elements jump around on the screen, and there is a constant schizophrenia with flip mode vs non-flip mode. In addition, it crashes all the time. And it sometimes _doesn't make calls_(restart!)!

My iPhone is in the mail.

Seeing the iPhone and what's possible with it, I think that it killed Symbian cold. That's because Nokia et. al. have no clue about software development and have let Symbian slowly degrade - my Symbian phone from 2003 is the same as the last one I had. Nothing's new. Nothing's better, software-side. In fact, my N73 from 2006 was slower than my 6600 from 2003.

Given the current state of Symbian and Win Mobile, major investment and major development needs to go into them before they can even hope to compete with OS X/iPhone. And somehow I don't think Nokia will be able to pull that off. Microsoft, on the other hand, will churn out a "good enough" clone of OS X eventually, and smart phone manufacturers such as HTC will have to use it in the absence of alternatives. Because Apple isn't gonna license OS X.

I don't dare to predict how that will end up looking in market share but Apple has a much better position in this game than they ever had in the PC marketplace. Because compared to PCs "it just works" is way more important for mobiles, and openness, while nice, way less.

[Richard @ Sep 20th 2007 8:25AM]

Without Doebt, the P990 was an abysmal failure,

For that V of UIQ, they removed the ability to customize menus and it had far less memory and far worse memory management than what it needed.

I understand that the constant firmware updates have made it better, but I am not sure what "better" is compared to. Thankfully, they never made the P990 in a version that supported the American bandwidths....so I never wasted the $$$. I do wish that they would bring over the P1, however.

I can't s why, though, anyone would switch to an iPhone that isn't even 3G and doesn't have all the capabilities of a SE T630 from 7 years ago. I think that the other important thing to understand about buying an iPhone in the EU is what are the carriers plans vis-a-vis EDGE speed. ATT spent untold sums upgrading their EDGE network over here to give it some speed.

iPhone. It's Cool! It's Slow. It can't send an MMS or (as I understand) download podcasts on its own. But it's cool. And you get to spend a lot uf time upgrading the firmware.

[Dan Gleckler @ Sep 19th 2007 9:36PM]

That would suck so bad. Sony Ericsson makes the best phones and mobile OS's ever. So much simply and bug-free. Only other company i'd buy from is Apple.

[Reid Conti @ Sep 19th 2007 10:06PM]

It blows my mind that people are actually on here defending Windows Mobile/Smartphone/CE/Compact Framework/whatever.

I used a Motorola Q (that I got for free) for about 2 weeks before I had to switch back to a conventional cell phone -- and I don't even pay for my own cell phone plan, so price was in no way a factor.

I'll admit I'm a Mac guy (with a Dell monitor), and even bought an iPhone (after the price drop). However, I will say that XP is a perfectly usable OS. I have to use it for work. I'd much rather have OS X, as it is difficult to do one's job as a Unix admin while using Windows for a desktop, but XP is definitely usable.

Windows Mobile is not. I'm not sure to what extent my bad experiences were Motorola's fault (hands down the worst cell phone maker) and what was Microsoft's fault, but there is no way MS can be blameless here. My phone, with extended battery, once lasted only 11 hours on a charge, with maybe 30 mins of talking in there. Half the time the device wouldn't realize it had been plugged into the wall. There is no way to quit applications, you have to bring up the task manager and kill them many times a day. If you have any applications running (actually, often if you have none running), the device becomes unresponsive and hangs for 10 seconds and then suddenly all of your button presses register. The web browser was next to useless. The phone was absolutely useless. Sometimes the thing would show a signal but just ignore incoming calls and subsequent voicemails until it was rebooted. You'd have to reboot the thing several times a day just to keep it working -- when it didn't just shut itself down for you. If you hit ALT for the first key during a password entry menu (when shift was already selected), it would take you into the alternate character selection menu, which you can't see in a password entry box, so you'd have to shut the thing off and turn it back on.

I cannot overemphasize how bad WM is. You sacrifice a functional cell phone for a barely useful web browser, a decent email client, and a few other apps that may or may not be useful.

Having EV-DO was nice, the thing would download blazingly fast, especially compared to my iPhone on EDGE. But the device is not worth suffering with. You'd be better off with just a basic cell phone; at least that way the phone rings when you get a call.

[reticulate @ Sep 19th 2007 10:47PM]

Bad Device =! Bad OS

WM5 is a fine mobile OS if it's on a device that has the power and memory to run it correctly.

[Duscrom @ Sep 20th 2007 1:13AM]

I'm using a T-Mobile Wing, and it's nothing like you described. I will say that it's not as stable or quick as the iPhone.... But, then Apple's walled garden isn't nearly as pleasant. I miss being able to communicate with IM programs, and I like having options w/o Apple treating me like a criminal.

O've yet to use a Symbian phone, but so far.. the iPhone is a nice, stable media-centric device, but my Wing is much "smart"er

[nikster @ Sep 20th 2007 3:05AM]

I am currently having a similar issue with a SE P990i. This phone barely functions, it's so bad. Making phone calls can be a challenge. Doesn't do MMS despite the operator sending me settings (none of my other phones had this issue). Doesn't send service messages so I can't even use recharge cards?!

Sometimes, it just doesn't ring. Whoops, 10 missed calls. No ringing, no nothing. It also likes to restart, not without saying that it "restarted to optimize performance".

iPhone's on the way...

[Rick @ Sep 20th 2007 12:42AM]

can't see this.
the best phone with the worst OS, just doesn't go.
would be the end of SE.

[Naveed @ Sep 20th 2007 1:15AM]

Sony Ericsson P1 running WM6...Id buy that at retail.

[exilis @ Sep 20th 2007 4:25AM]

Second me there, I'm fed up with my M600's instability, random ways of wanting things done (have been using UIQ since the day the p800 came out and still haven't quite gotten used to it) and sluggishness.

The iPhone I won't touch because in my eyes it's a crippled handset, no MMS, no 3g and no exchange activesync makes it a non starter for me.

That leave windows mobile. From what I've played with WM6 is actually a nice OS, for a smartphone. It'll never compare to the ease of use/reliability/speed of a normal standard phone OS, but for a smartphone, it's actually pretty good now.

So close to buying an HTC Kaiser/TyTN 2, but a P1i with WM6 would be even better.

[Virtuous @ Sep 20th 2007 1:43AM]

Symbian smartphones have virtually zero market share in the US corporate market. Windows Mobile could increase Sony Ericsson's slice of the US business market.

[Phil @ Sep 20th 2007 2:01AM]

Neither HP nor Motorola can make a decent WinMo handset to save their lives. HTC has been proving that you can make a decently priced WinMo phone with great call quality and battery life for a couple of years now. I replaced my SonyEricsson phones with HTC WinMo phones already this year.

My favorite is my T-Mobile Dash. Awesome calls and battery life, awesome MP3 and video with TCPMP (HTC should just put it on all their WinMo phones), fantastic texting with the keyboard, it's thinner than an iPhone, and I don't need iTunes to put stuff on it. Its POP email client imitates push email like a star, and the calendar, text editor, mini spreadsheet, and browser are the best I've used on any handheld device.

Plus I know software developers that can whip out a Microsoft .NET Compact Framework app twice as fast as any Java programmer I've seen can make an app for Symbian.

[Jorge @ Sep 20th 2007 2:47AM]

no, sony ericsson will not have window mobile os phone since they are the owner of UIQ. I bet they are just putting their brand on a HTC phone to sell to China or India.

[Indra @ Sep 20th 2007 9:23AM]

Great news! I've been loving SE but had to part with it when I found WM5.0 (now WM6.0). For SE to move to WM is definitely a good news. *excited

[Crass @ Sep 20th 2007 9:39AM]

This could be SE's chance to enter into the Mobile Enterprise market...
I carry an SE K790a and an HTC P4000. One is for play, one is for work. I love both phones very much and wouldn't give one up for the other...