Sony Ericsson Looks To Open Up UIQ

Sony Ericsson has completed its buyout of UIQ Technology, developers of the handset user interface of the same name, and this week at 3GSM outlined its strategy for the unit. In short, it sounds like the company is trying to emulate the strategies of Symbian and Nokia's S60 team, which creates another UI that runs on top of the Symbian operating system, by saying it will continue to actively license UIQ to other companies, and it even wants to sell other handset vendors shares in UIQ to reinforce its stance as a semi-independent and non-discriminatory software supplier. One of the bigger advantages going for S60 is the number of deals with operators it's inked, which will see the carriers create their own custom versions of S60 to use across a portfolio of devices. UIQ hasn't been a part of any such deals, but Sony Ericsson would love to see it become a preferred platform for operators alongside S60, Windows Mobile and others. If the new Motorola RIZR Z8, which was announced at 3GSM and was the talk of the show is any indication of the kind of devices that the UIQ platform can enable, it shouldn't have any problem doing so.