Last year, the smartphone manufacturer Sony Ericsson managed to make a comeback in the market by switching exclusively to Android.
But now, even though Android was the one that brought names like Xperia to the forefront, there may be a new player in the smartphone OS wars.
Of course, the name Sony Ericsson is now defunct. Sony bought out Ericsson’s share in the mobile joint venture so now it has complete control in all future branded smartphones.
Part of that decision was to create a stronger synergy between its mobile products and its gaming products. Sony has been pushing for an Android-powered Playstation platform for a while, but now it might not go that road.
Sony SVP Yoshio Matsumoto was recently quoted as saying, “If you’re asking if we’ve made it in a way that’s expandable, so that it’s possible to apply to smartphones and tablets on top of achieving the high responsiveness we need for gaming devices — it is possible. That doesn’t mean that we’re applying it to smartphones and tablets at this point in time, but it’s been designed with expandability in mind.”
If it uses its own proprietary operating system, Sony could make its smartphones highly differentiated, and it could be tailored to offer extreme integration with other Sony products. It would be similar to Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS. But then again, is there room for another player in this crowded market?
