Waiting for a hero

That dream grew ever more unlikely in 2002, a year when Nokia cemented its leadership, Samsung became the new poster child, and Motorola stemmed its bleeding. Sony Ericsson, on the other hand, seemed powerless to arrest the slide as its market share plummeted and tightening purse strings threatened to tear the marriage asunder.

LAST DECEMBER, I received an email from a software company that wanted to participate in a Sony Ericsson competition. Having attempted unsuccessfully several times to submit the completed application, a chat client for the P800 PDA-phone, the chief executive wrote me his thoughts.

"I know the Sony Ericsson joint venture has been struggling commercially. Does the lack of professionalism in the organization of this contest reflect the existence of a bigger organizational, efficiency level problem?" he questioned, with more than a hint of exasperation.

His company eventually did manage to submit its software, which went on to become one of the winning entries. But for me, the incident did nothing to quell suggestions of a troubled symbiosis between Sony and Ericsson.

The London-based company released several Sony Ericsson-branded handsets in 2002, including the T100, T200, T300, T600 and T68i. A few, like the T100, were successful by Sony Ericsson's standards, while others flopped. But they were all more Ericsson than Sony Ericsson. The impressive P800 was one exception, but was it merely a flash in the pan?

Oh, you've not seen the true Sony Ericsson yet, executives told us last June.

We certainly had not. It was about time we did. The gestation period of a phone can span two years, and the company needed more time then to create a totally new product. But now, at almost 18 months of age, Sony Ericsson can no longer seek shelter under the guise of youth. It has to start delivering the goods.

Will it?

Sony Ericsson "Hero" T610

Sony Ericsson calls the T610 its "hero product". Indeed, I think the company has created a gem here, a handset with a blend of handsome looks--which I credited to the Sony influence--and smart features typical of Ericsson. Later, I learned that the T610 is the first true Sony Ericsson--a phone developed from scratch by the merged entity.

But if the T610 is the noble knight, then the T310 is the peasant squire. The latter looked rather uninspired to me, and offered only marginal feature improvements. Not surprisingly, the T310 is based on the T300, which in turn had its genesis in the Ericsson labs.

Much as company officials have tried to downplay the T310, Sony Ericsson remains dependent on such "legacy" handsets to beef up its portfolio. It could be another year before it carves out a whole new identity for itself.

Sony Ericsson's duo, then, are as much a sign of the future as they are a vestige of a past it cannot yet leave behind. The clock is still ticking, but at least Sony Ericsson has now bought itself a bit more time.