Sony Ericsson Drops Symbian, Goes with Android and Windows Phone 7

Japanese-Swedish mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson won't come to the market with a new Symbian-based smartphone, Jan Uddenfeldt, Sony Ericsson's new Chief Technology Officer, announced a few days ago. However, the handset vendor will come to the market with devices based on Microsoft's new Windows Phone 7 OS.

The company “have no plans for new products with Symbian,” is what he stated during an interview with NyTeknik, a weekly Swedish technology newspaper.

Moreover, Jan Uddenfeldt also confirmed that the company will focus on handsets running under Google's Android operating system, tough it seems that this won't rule out smartphones running under other mobile platforms out there, including Microsoft's OS.

“Android is definitely our focus, but we have not given up on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating system, although it had a bit slow to take off. But Windows 7 Phone is on the roadmap. However, we have at present no plans for new products with Symbian,” Uddenfeldt added.

Of course, no specific info on the matter emerged for the time being, but appears that the handset vendor will try to come to the market with devices powered by fewer mobile OSes, and that Symbian might not be among its options.

However, it's unclear whether the CTO's sayings refer to the possibility that Sony Ericsson would launch a new Symbian phone in the near future, or they were pointing toward no new such smartphone from the mobile phone maker.

For those out of the loop, we should note that Sony Ericsson is the second major handset vendor on the market announcing its departure from the Symbian operating system.

Last year, South Korean mobile phone maker Samsung was also rumored to plan making a move in this direction, with plans to focus mainly on the release of devices running under Android, Windows Phone 7 and its own bada platforms.

Moreover, we should note that the announcement comes several months after Sony Ericsson was rumored to plan moving away from Microsoft's mobile platform, and that Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 was the last Windows phone in the vendor's portfolio.