Sony Ericsson has announced plans to make its first Android handset, having joined the Open Handset Alliance.
What's more, it looks like the handset could sport one of Sony Ericsson's existing sub-brands, judging by comments by CVP and head of creation and development Rikko Sakaguchi.
"Sony Ericsson is excited to announce its membership of the Open Handset Alliance and confirm its intention to develop a handset based on the Android platform," he says.
"We believe Sony Ericsson can bring a wealth of experience in making consumer focused multimedia handsets with new user experience to the Alliance drawing on the successes of the Walkman and Cyber-shot sub-brands."
Does this mean Sony Ericsson is ditching Symbian and/or Windows Mobile? Not for now, it seems.
The announcement specifies that the company's membership of the Open Handset Alliance will "complement" its existing strategy of supporting those two smartphone platforms.
Sony Ericsson was asked to join the Alliance back in 2007, but
declined in favour of backing its own UIQ platform, which was then mothballed earlier this year.
In September, there were reports that Sony Ericsson was
eyeing up Android, so today's announcement isn't a huge surprise.
In fact, Sony Ericsson is just one of 14 new members of the Alliance. The others are AKM Semiconductor Inc., ARM, ASUSTek Computer, Atheros Communications, Borqs, Ericsson, Garmin, Huawei, Omron Software, Softbank Mobile, Teleca, Toshiba and Vodafone.
We're looking forward to Sony Ericsson's first Android handset, anyway. Now seems a good time to start a PlayStation Android phone rumour...
