One big one, one small one, and one small one with a keyboard
You know when a Hollywood power-couple can take rumours of ther marital difficulties no longer, and take out a double page advert in half the world’s dailies expressing their love for each other, and swearing how nothing can ever separate them? You know how that invariably works out, right?
Well, it felt a bit like that tonight at Sony Ericsson’s press launch for three new phones (of which more later). Sony had sent along President, CEO and Chairman Sir Howard Stringer to lend support. Now Howard didn’t say a lot, save to say that Sony is completely committed to Sony Ericsson.
“We firmly support Sony Ericsson and (SE CEO) Bert Nordberg,” he said. In fact, so happy was Stringer with Nordberg (“who I appointed”) and the new direction at Sony Ericsson that he said he was feeling “a new wave of euphoria”. That he could hardly keep a straight face when saying this rather undermined his point.
Stringer wasn’t really there to enthuse about the new phones but instead to proclaim that the marriage was stronger than ever. There was, however, nobody there from Ericsson to reciprocate.
The temptation to guide Hoornik and Sagaguchi to the window and say, “Look, an iceberg, a huge one, for God’s sake change course,” was overwhelming If Stringer did have something to bring to the conference as a token of his love, it was the news that Sony now views Sony Ericsson phones as a handy way of extending its PlayStation Network, and its whole networked services business. Clearly, the phones already carry Walkman and Cybershot brands, but they will now “potentially” have even closer ties to Sony. For example, Stringer said the company is “considering an extended, seamless Sony UI across Sony Ericsson phones.”
And so to the new phones. As well as the Vivaz, and the XperiaX10 that have already been announced, Sony Ericsson announced a miniature version of the X10, a miniature version of the X10 that also has a QWERTY keyboard, and a version of the Vivaz that also has a QWERTY keyboard. VP of marketing Lennard Hoornik called this line up the “fabulous five.”
A year ago, Sony Ericsson had the absolute hots for the Satio, the phone that was going to put it back in the game.
This phone, this Satio, was going to change the way we view the communication entertainment experience. It was PlayNow, it was here, and boy were they excited. Oh yes.
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Yet now, after a horrendous year, the company is back at Mobile World Congress, pinning its hopes on this new “Fabulous Five”, which is essentially three phones, two of them with a keyboard added.
Alongside these, the company launched something called UXP, which stands for User Experience Platform. This appears to be its stab at a new, lovely software layer (a UI+, if you like), a bit like Motorola’s Blur or HTC’s Sense. It will be available on new phones going forward, and as a backwards compatible software load for existing X10 phones later this year.
The company also introduced what it called its new “design language”, which appeared to be phones with curves. There were not just any plain old curves, though. No, these are the Christina Hendricks curves of the phone world.
Chief Creation Officer Rikko Sagaguchi, the man with the best job title in mobile, took to the stage to tell us that the phones are based on “human curvature”. There was an incredible amount of stuff about appealing to the “human curvature” emotional side of us, as well as to our rational sides. Sagaguchi also told us that listening to music is like “communicating with yourself” (Rikko, it’s really not). The human curvature and the rational UXP would lead Sony Ericsson to the promised land of customer experience, Sagaguchi waffled on. “Now we have something that meets our vision … it’s been tough,” he said, sounding exhausted by now. The audience knew how he felt.
Hoornik cradled the phone in two hands like a minister offering up a baby to be baptised. “Every time I look at this phone, and touch it, I smile. That’s what Sony Ericsson is about, making people smile,” he gushed.
The temptation to guide Hoornik and Sagaguchi to a window and say, “Look, an iceberg, a huge one, for God’s sake change course,” was overwhelming. But I guess you don’t get to call yourself Chief Creation Officer unless you know a thing or two, even if your company hasn’t made a profit for seven quarters, is losing market share like water from a sieve, and its last handset didn’t sort of, work properly.
By this stage it was entirely possible that Sir Howard was thinking better of his public declaration of love, but if he was, then he kept it to himself. He may well have been experiencing a wave of something. It’s doubtful that it was really euphoria.