They'll be around for a while. They just need to step up and move a lot faster. Look at how many solid HTC Droid phones are out. Samsung has 2 as well and both have Froyo.

 

I think they'll manage to survive. They will adapt.

 

The most interesting thought in that article is gizmo noting Nokia would have been better off buying Palm for webOS than faffing around with Symbien.

I agree. I like webOS fine and it would look good on Nokia hardware. Too bad.

 

They seem to be having the same problems as other companies that go bad ... they focus their vision inward and not to the end user.

Their ideas seem to come from staff in dark back rooms where company focus is #1 and the real world is dead last.

If someone doesn't switch the light on they are doomed. The products in the market place that are available for lower cost beat their product considerably.

Not a good position to be in.

 

all you have to do is read the many threads,,the hate for this company is huge,, they dont have many fanboys,,
and with there lack of customer service focus even if they came out with the latest and greatest handset now, they would have a hard time to gain any market share,,

but then again sony has deep pockets so im sure they will live

 

I think they will pull their finger out and do alot better in the future

 

maybe ,,, but the first name of that company,, makes me wonder,,, if history repeats itself,, i doubt it..

 

I've had a mobile phone for more than ten years, and - apart from one awful Nokia many years ago - I've always had an Ericsson / Sony Ericsson. Throughout that time SE have never made the most innovative phones, nor the most stylish. But they're always made the most reliable, useful, long-life phones.

Then I got the X1 with WinMo and it was the coolest phone I'd ever had, but bloody hopeless (mostly down to WinMo rather than the phone itself). It crashed a lot, froze regularly, and was generally a pain in the arse. I ended up getting shot of it after six months and going back to a standard phone.

In May this year I bit the bullet and got an X10 (instead of an HTC). Initially I thought I'd made a big mistake, the battery life was hopeless and it became clear that - although they'd promised a 2.1 update - SE were miles behind on standard Android-phone features (like MT). After a couple of weeks I'd changed my mind. The battery life (now I know what to do with it) is good, I've got apps that I like, and I've made my phone my own - just how I like it. I'm looking forward to the 2.1 update, mostly because of the new apps it will open up, and although I'd like to have MT I'm not that bothered about it.

BUT - it's very clear that SE are not very good and making smartphones (yet?). Whereas they used to make great phones that weren't necessarily very stylish, now they seem to have switched things around. Their smartphones look amazing (much better than all the others in my view), but technology-wise they're not keeping up with HTC, Motorola, Samsung etc.

I think it's down to the fact that SE were always a major player in 'normal' mobile phones, where developments were naturally slow and steady. SE always competed against the likes of Nokia - and if you want to see a company that really hasn't kept up with the smartphone market, look no further than them - they have been completely left behind.

In contrast, HTC are new and set up specifically to make smartphones. Motorola made crap standard phones that lasted two minutes, and have successfully turned themselves into a dedicated smartphone company. Even Samsung are relatively new, with less legacy.

So I think that's where SE's problem lies - they are predominantly a standard phone company who are dipping their toe in the smartphone market. Until they change their whole company outlook and structure to focus on smartphones, or - more likely - until they split off a separate smartphone company with new people and a new outlook, which isn't held back by their traditional company, they're never gone to keep up with slick, dedicated, focussed smartphone companies like HTC or even Apple.

The result for me is that - in 12 months time when my current contract expires - I probably won't get an SE Android phone, unless they're changed things dramatically. And next time I see a little snippet of information about an SE phone - like "they'll roll out a 2.1 update in six months" - I'll remember that what that actually means is that in a fast-moving market, SE are probably 12 months or more behind the big players.

One final point - all of this is a real shame, because I firmly believe that if SE committed themselves to smartphones properly, they would be easily capable of blowing the competition away with high spec, long-lasting stylish phones. But until they employ a Director of Common Sense with enough clout to stop them from making stupid decisions that obviously won't work (like "we'll launch our phone with an android version that's already out of date, and not update it to 2.1 for six months, by which time 2.1 will be out of date as well") they're not going to get anywhere fast.