Sony Ericsson gives it a try with the Xperia
There was a time when you would have thought that Sony Ericsson would be a dominant player in the smart phone industry; they were after all one of the biggest manufacturers of cell phones. However a few mistakes have meant that they have largely missed the boat. They are relying on the Xperia to help correct the problem.
The Sony Ericsson Xperia series of smart phones are one of the strangest lines of phones that you are going to find on the market which probably has a lot to do with the awkward way in which the company got into the smart phone game in the first place. The main issue has been the operating systems that they have used. In the early days Sony Ericsson partnered with Nokia to develop the Symbian operating system with each company creating their own version. The problem was that the Nokia version proved to be much more popular and as a result Sony Ericsson struggled to make sales.
The failure of the version of Symbian that Sony Ericsson were using left them in the difficult position of having no system of their own. At the time all of their competitors had a unique operating system. With no other options Sony Ericsson partnered with Microsoft to use their operating system in the Xperia. They have since moved on from this and they are now producing phones that use the Android operating system. This creates a problem for the company as they now have to support three different operating systems which greatly increases their costs. This is a real problem because none of their products has sold particularly well.
The Xperia is a line of phones; there are currently ten different models. While the early issues that the company had related to their operating system the current ones have more to do with the quality of the phones. There are certainly some things to like about them but there is really nothing that stands out when compared to their competitors. The Xperia has an attractive appearance and a large screen but it is also a large phone. A lot of people also don't like the interface on the phone.
There is no getting around the fact that Sony Ericsson has struggled in recent years in large part because they missed the boat on the smart phone market and have been unable to recover. The result is that the company are in serious trouble financially. At one time they were one of the largest producers of cell phones but a few mistakes in the early days of the smart phones has put them in a tough spot. They are relying on the Xperia to keep them afloat but there is considerable debate about whether or not this is going to happen.