Sony Ericsson has been an established name in the cellphone market for years. All of that changes now.
Sony announced that the transaction to acquire Ericsson’s 50 percent stake in Sony Ericsson was completed on February 15. This now makes Sony Ericsson a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony.
Sony Ericsson will be renamed to “Sony Mobile Communications” which doesn’t have as nice of a ring to it, but it works. The move is more important than just a name change as it allows Sony to push the phone business into its consumer electronics business.
It will allow Sony to share technology between its TVs, tablets, PCs, game consoles and phones. Sony is already using PlayStation certification to bring console quality gaming to their Android-powered smartphones. The acquisition helps them bring more technologies across their product portfolio to smartphones.
The new division will be headed by Bert Nordberg, who has been in charge of the company since 2009. It’s corporate HQ will be in London, but will have R&D sites around the world in Beijing, Lund, Silicon Valley and Tokyo.
The change was seen coming last month when Sony announced the new Xperia Ion smartphone that didn’t feature the Sony Ericsson name on the device, in favor of just Sony.
It’s remains to be seen if the new Sony Mobile Communications will get a new logo to replace that ugly Sony Ericsson logo.
