Sony Cell Phone
The Sony cell phone represents the major Sony Ericsson product since, for quite some time now, the two companies associated to combine one’s expertise in consumer electronics and the other’s technological leadership in communications. Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita were the founders of the Sony Corporation, although they did not envisage the creation of the Sony cell phone. The headquarters of the company are at Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a corporation, Sony services a huge electronics market that includes not only phones but video stations, TV sets, computers, semiconductors, play stations and other consumer electronics as well. In 2008 the company’s total income was US$ 4 billion and their revenue was US$ 100 billion. In March 2008 the number of employees the company had was 180,500.
From a historical point of view, Sony has been notable for their standards for new recording and storage technologies, as they created their individual brands and products without stealing from the competition. In time, Sony has introduced standards such as: Umatic (~1968), Betamax (1975), Betacam (81), Compact Disc (82), 3.5 inch Floppy Disk (82), Video8 (85), DAT (87), Hi8 (88), Minidisc (~90), Digital Betacam (~90), miniDV (92), Memory Stick (98), Digital8 (99), PSP Universal Media Disc (~2003), HDV (~2004), Blu-ray Disc (2006). So, Sony is mainly known for these consumer electronics rather than for cell phones which they started developing in cooperation with Ericsson only. Therefore, although you may refer to them as Sony cell phone products, you would actually discuss Sony Ericsson phones.
After their association, Sony and Ericsson became famous in the field of cell phone design due to their Walkman and Cyber-shot phones, getting to the fifth place among the top companies of the world, after LG, Nokia, Samsung and Motorola. The most famous Walkman mobiles were by far K750i and W800i, each with a great music playback range and two low-end phones included; both mobiles were launched in March 2005. No later than October in the same year, another Sony cell phone – the P990 - was released, being the first mobile phone based on UIQ 3.
Another successful Sony cell phone worth mentioning comes from the Cyber-shot brand. This one – the K750, was also launched in 2005 and made record sales. Unlike the Walkman had the disadvantage of a poor camera, the Cyber-shot phone included both great cameras and decent viewing media.