Despite Sony’s acquisition of Sony Ericsson and continuous release of their Xperia line, the company is in bad terms with the green little robot when it comes to revenue. The company declared a $325 million loss for fiscal 2011 and says it’s because of the tight competition among lower end Android phones. Sony hasn’t given up though and plans to make use of the gaming brand they’ve established with Playstation by making its content available for Android phones and tablets. Today, Sony tells us their doors are open for the Windows Phone mobile platform.
Android and iOS are today’s two leading mobile platforms for smartphones and tablets. There is no actual competition between iOS devices since all are owned by Apple. On the other hand, dozens of manufacturers have to compete against each other in the Android market. Huawei, LG, Acer, Asus, Panasonic, Motorola, HTC, Samsung, and of course, Sony are just some of the brands that make Android phones and tablets. Sony is having a tough time competing with others. A recent survey revealed Samsung as the most preferred Android brand in the US. Motorola and HTC follow closely but all others – including LG and Sony – were left behind.
Stephen Sneeden, Product Marketing Manager of the Sony Xperia line, says the company is open to the idea of making phones running Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform. It’s a smart move for the company since they aren’t doing well in the Android market. But Sony is neither closing its doors to Android, nor are they fully embracing Windows Phone. They remain flexible to both mobile platforms, but will currently lean towards Android since “no one really cares about Windows Phone” at this point.
In addition to Windows Phone, Sony also has Vita OS as a fallback. It is the same operating system used for the company’s latest game console, Playstation Vita. Sony plans to bring the Playstation gaming experience to future tablets and phones with this platform. What would be really interesting to see is a partnership between NVIDIA and Sony. NVIDIA is the leading producer of Tegra, a game-optimized processor for Android phones.
But Sony is yet to break grounds on Android with the help of Playstation, everyone’s all-time favorite game console.
