Sony Ericsson: 'Studying the Android possibility'

Mobile maker Sony Ericsson has hinted it is considering offering a handset running Google's Android mobile OS, despite not currently being signed up to the Open Handset Alliance - the group of mobile and software companies committed to getting Android handsets commercially launched this year.

Speaking this week in Lund, Sweden, president Dick Komiyama said: "We are certainly studying about this possibility although we're not in a position to do this at this moment but it is something we should study and we should look at this as a potential application for the future. So today I'm not saying that we will have Android but we are certainly interested in and we are studying about it."

The first Google-powered device is set to arrive in the US next month, made by Taiwan's HTC.

Sony Ericsson meanwhile has a foot in several OS camps. The mobile maker will launch its first Windows Mobile handset - the Xperia X1 - at the end of this month, a break from its tradition of using the UIQ software platform for high end smart phones.

Komiyama said Sony Ericsson is involved in the Symbian Foundation - the movement to unify and open source the various Symbian mobile OSes - while also launching its first phone running Windows Mobile, adding: "We're in position to evaluate all these possibilities as to what is good for the end user."

However the company is currently focusing on streamlining its business following a very difficult Q2, with net profits falling 97 per cent. Komiyama said there is no doubt that gloomy economic conditions - or what he described as a "very severe thunder storm" - has taken its toll on the business, not least with the announcement back in July that the company will be cutting 2,000 jobs.

The storm Sony Ericsson has been weathering is not only the slowing down of consumer confidence globally, according to Komiyama, but is also specifically down to "the change of replacement cycles" in Japan as consumers there aren't upgrading their phones as quickly as they used to.

"We are quickly working together to reorganise our way of doing our business and way to be competitive and the way to be more efficient", a process that could take three or four months, he added.