Wayfinder, the Stockholm-based mobile navigation solutions provider, has recently announced an extended collaboration with Sony Ericsson, which will result in the latter's GPS-enabled handsets offering a richer navigation experience to end users. 

Thanks to Wayfinder Navigator – the flagship application of the Swedish company – Sony Ericsson's phones will be capable of providing full navigation capabilities, with "lane and sign post information" included.

Some of SE's handsets already have trials of Wayfinder Navigator – phones like the C702 Cyber-shot (reviewed by Softpedia here), the W760 Walkman and the ultimate Cyber-shot, namely Sony Ericsson C905.

Leveraging on maps provided by Tele Atlas, Wayfinder Navigator is presented as an affordable navigation solution for "normal mobile users." You can download and use maps for more than 70 countries, this allowing you to avoid high data roaming costs.

Talking about the extended partnership with Wayfinder, Rikko Sakaguchi, corporate vice president and head of Creation & Development at Sony Ericsson, stated, "With the increased importance of GPS-phones in our portfolio, I am delighted to further expand our relationship with Wayfinder. We work closely together in order to deliver a user experience second to none in the fast growing location based services field soon to become a mass market service."

Magnus Nilsson, chief executive officer of Wayfinder Systems, also said, "Ease of use and simplicity are key components of our product strategy, and the expansion of this agreement is a testimonial to the success of that approach. Wayfinder will enable Sony Ericsson and its operator customers to offer our navigation and location services at mass market prices to end-users around the world."

For the moment, only 7 Sony Ericsson handsets have built-in GPS, but the Swedish-Japanese joint venture is getting ready to announce new ones, all of which will come preloaded with Wayfinder Navigator. Let's hope these upcoming handsets will meet our high expectations.