The grand unification of Sony (NYSE: SNE ) continues. A Friday report at The
Wall Street Journal said Sony is trying to buy out Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC ) from
their shared joint venture, mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson. Sony will pay an
estimated $1 billion to Ericsson, giving SNE control of both the company and its
full array of mobile technology patents, which analysts value somewhere between
$1.3 and $1.7 billion. With Sonys overall plans for the mobile technology
business which include advanced gaming devices, tablets and more media services
than you can shake a stick at its unsurprising that the company wants full
control over its smartphone enterprise. Still, it might be too late for Sony to
change the shape of that market with its own phones. At the moment, Sony is
preparing to release the PlayStation Vita handheld into the market, as well as
the PlayStation Suite a digital games service supported by Android phones and
tablets. It also recently entered the tablet game with the S1 and S2 tablets.
With Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ) tightening its grip on the market, Google (NASDAQ:
GOOG ) repositioning itself as a manufacturing force by acquiring Motorola
(NYSE: MMI ), and Nokia (NYSE: NOK ) preparing to re-enter the market with
backing by Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ), its difficult to imagine that Sony could
quickly and effectively take on the smartphone businesses with its own line of
handsets. Sonys resources have been placed in other developing mobile products,
and Sony Ericssons existing business has eroded to the point where it needs to
be completely restarted. Since Sony also has tied itself closely to the Android
platform, it needs to consider how to best leverage that operating system
without trying to live on the scraps left by Android phone makers like Samsung
(PINK: SSNLF ), HTC and Google itself in the future.
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