Sony Ericsson has announced that it will develop its first Android phone and put it in the market in the summer of 2009. The company joined the Open Handset Alliance this week and immediately made it known that it would be focusing its efforts on introducing a high end Android handset in the US market. The SE strategy is to make an entry into the market by introducing high end Google-powered phones and then broaden their base by introducing other models. SE is already developing phones on the Symbian / Windows Mobile platform and its entry into the Android sphere will help it broaden its reach with the segment that is drawn to all things open source. SE let go of a chance to join Android in 2007 but thought fit to do so now perhaps perhaps because its own UIQ platform did not quite work out.
Speculatively, the Xperia1 is the most likely SE model to be presented in the Android version since its earlier avatar on a Windows mobile did not go down too well with users. Samsung, LG, Motorola and HTC are some of the other players who could come out with an Android handset in 2009. Looks like the iPhone and Blackberry vs the rest competition will get interesting next year. [Source]
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