Sony's Symbian selection applauded

Sony Ericsson's raft of handsets, announced earlier this week, have gained approval from analysts praising the manufacturer's choice of the Symbian 7 operating system.

Symbian is fast becoming the handset manufacturers' platform of choice - in preference to Palm OS or Microsoft's Windows CE.

Bernt Ostergaard, telecommunications analyst at Giga Web, said: "Symbian 7 is hands down the most sophisticated smart phone operating system around.

"The problem with Palm and Microsoft's systems is they are basically PDA products. There is very little incentive among the top players in the handset business to use Microsoft as they are worried about being trapped and only being able to compete on price."

Top products from Nokia and Ericsson already use the Symbian system, as does Samsung, which is also the only phone developer to also have licensed Microsoft's Windows CE platform.

Speaking on Sony and Ericsson's alliance, Gartner analyst Ben Wood, said: "There isn't anything revolutionary in this launch but the joint venture seems very strong. There's lots of commitment from both sides and they seem to have overcome the cultural differences that other alliances such as Lucent and Phillips haven't."