"It does require a lot of evaluation, as well as a lot of testing, a lot of acceptance from a consumer viewpoint, and there is still some time to go," Chief Executive Hideki Komiyama told Reuters in an interview.
"Looking ahead I think that we see this as one of the important operating systems, there is no doubt," he said.
I don't think waiting to see what everyone else does before you launch your own product is the best way to operate in the mobile device market. Yes, it worked for Apple, but that had more to do with rigidities in the telco / mobile ecology (telcos try to lock you in and own your ass) than any absolute inability to innovate.
I can understand SONY Ericsson needing to prioritise. They are losing money big time and are looking at big job cuts. Maybe they just can't afford to develop mobile products for the three platforms they say they are targeting (Symbian, MS mobile Windows and Android).
I think downgrading Android will prove to be a mistake, but I make no claim to infallibility.
The attraction of Android for phone buyers and users is the potential for it to be more open than other platforms. People who don’t want to be shackled to iTunes when their iPhone is 5,000 miles away from the PC they sync with are looking to Android to save them. On the flipside, telcos are ALL ABOUT locking people in. They see Android’s open aspect as a threat.
SONY isn’t famous for being open. They suffocated their beta video format by refusing to license it until far too late, while VHS was open to anyone to license and manufacture for. SONY computers only run Windows. I wouldn’t dare try to load Linux on a Vaio, for example.
SONY are already off my list of possible mobile phones as things are now, but without Android or some other more open equivalent, they won’t be getting back on it any time soon.
I have my iPod Touch for access to the Apple-verse. My cheapo 3G cell covers the rest of the field until something better comes along that offers the promise of both without me having to fork out big dollars for cool stuff only to have them own my ass.
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