In a lot of ways, Sony Ericsson is like Nokia. Both own a majority stake in a Symbian OS interface. Both are having trouble catching on, or catching on again, in the U.S. market, though they enjoy popularity abroad. And both have much nicer handsets for sale on the European market than they do here. Both companies seem similar, so what can Sony Ericsson learn from their larger competitor? Plenty.
If you build it, they will play
Sony Ericsson should learn from the N-Gage. The gaming market will slip between their fingers if a Playstation Portable phone doesn’t come to light in the next year. No need to launch just yet, gaming consoles are always announced well before an actual launch date. But we need to see a real gaming phone, and Sony has all the right kinds of experience to create something that will satisfy the hardcore gamers. There is no reason why a hardcore gamer should carry around a PSP, or a Nintendo DS Lite, as well as a multimedia smartphone. Sony Ericsson needs to leverage the Sony half of that partnership, which includes relationships with all of the top game developers, and build a PSP phone. And if they don’t do it soon, Microsoft will.
Convergence
Sony Ericsson should learn from the North American version of the Nokia N95. Obviously, the lesson is about bringing a top-notch multimedia phone to the U.S. market, unlocked, with full U.S. HSDPA bands in place. But that isn’t the only lesson. In the N95, Nokia didn’t split their best camera phone from their best music phone. You get the best music player Nokia offers, along with DVD-quality video recording and Carl Zeiss optics. Sony Ericsson, however, uses their best music player, the Walkman 2 software, on their Walkman-branded phones, and their best camera software on their Cyber Shot-branded phones, and never the two shall meet. Why not? Are consumers too single-minded to understand Cyber Shot camera AND Walkman music on a Sony Ericsson phone? Too segmented to want a great camera phone and a great music phone? We doubt it.
A smarter phone
Sony Ericsson should learn from the lack of Symbian phones on the U.S. market, and the total absence of UIQ. When we asked Sony Ericsson reps at a press event this year why the company sticks with UIQ, the interface for which we found confusing and obtuse even in a fairly recent device like the Sony Ericsson P1, we were told it is very popular in Europe. Americans like pictures, not abstractions. We like large keys on skinny, curvy little phones.
We would like to see plenty of movement from Sony Ericsson in UIQ this year, because there is so much room for improvement. We’ve seen interface and networking enhancements that Symbian has planned, and we’ve always believed these were more ripe for S/E’s UIQ than Nokia’s stodgier S60. Recent prototypes floating around the rumor bins online, like the P5 concept we saw recently, show just the sort of phone we’re looking for, which means the company might be headed in the right direction. We’d suggest that with the hardware and interface enhancements, they not forget to include the super-combo Broadcom chip with bands for every flavor of high-speed data you can find on the planet.
Our wish list
Such devices, accessible on every network now professing openness, would be an interesting move for a player like Sony Ericsson, looking to gain some ground without a firm footing in the carrier’s stores. An unlocked gaming phone with the Playstation brand, or a multimedia smartphone with Sony’s own Cyber Shot and Walkman badges, or even a new smartphone, with a snazzy new OS to compete with Apple’s device. This is what we’d hope for from Sony Ericsson in the year to come.
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