Sony Ericsson’s CEO, Bert Nordberg, admits to the WSJ that sticking to candy bar dumbphones while the iPhone made them obsolete was a mistake: “It’s safe to say that Sony Ericsson should have taken the iPhone more seriously when it arrived in 2007.” Yes, it’s probably highly safe to say so — much as AOL should have taken broadband more seriously when it arrived, and horses should have taken cars more seriously when they arrived. But Nordberg’s not giving up: “However, our Android strategy has been successful and the best choice we could have made, considering the growth of the Android platform.” Like the Xperia Play? The best thing about that “Android strategy” was probably the commercials. [WSJ via TechCrunch]
Michael
Tuesday, October 4, 2011 at 12:13 PMI loved my SE W800i. Shame it used Memorysticks and not SD cards, otherwise I would have upgraded that to 4gigs. A friend told me it was like a “iPod” that could make phone calls. That “friend” owns a iPhone for just that reason yet always wants to play with my non-iphone phone.
Salmonpie
Tuesday, October 4, 2011 at 1:11 PMWhen Candy bars still ruled the planet, I had a new Sony Ericsson every year for 6 years. They were (as far as I was concerned) the best looking and feature rich phones available, at the time.
darknessfalls
Tuesday, October 4, 2011 at 3:30 PMPoor Sony, they have lost Walkman to iPod, and they have lost smartphones to iPhone.
They never learn?
Steve
Tuesday, October 4, 2011 at 8:24 PMTo be fair, there was a generation (or two, if you count Mini-Disc players) between the Walkman and iPhone. This is like saying dinosaurs lost to humans.
And Sony Ericsson is somewhat distinct from ‘Sony.’ It’s essentially the same Swedish Ericsson but with Sony financial backing and influence. And considering how Nokia’s doing now, you wonder what be if these once-dominant Nordic companies did something other than lie and be steam-rolled.
Michael
Tuesday, October 4, 2011 at 3:33 PMI had a W810i I bought for myself though high school. Great phone even though I needed to send it in for repairs a couple of times for hardware faults. Its unfortunate that Sony stood by and let their candy bars float into the smartphone scene. I still see Ericsson phones that don’t have that widescreen and they look ANCIENT by todays standards.
adrian
Tuesday, October 4, 2011 at 11:57 PMI had a K850i a few years ago and it was the most excellent phone of it’s day, a 5 megapixel camera, a -quite- loud speaker, microsd card support and the classiest design around. Too bad I drowned it…