CellPhoneBurn

Ok, this next story may have well have got drowned out in all the shouting about the Nokia N97 (yes, that included me going, “Want one, want one, want one!“), but the release of the smartphone powerhouse wasn’t the only news Nokia had to tell us yesterday.

According to the Boy Genius Report, Nokia also confirmed that their full acquisition of Symbian has now gone through. So, no more wrangling, no more negotiations, Nokia’s now in charge of the Symbian universe.

Which means what, exactly?

Being a man, I naturally like to see two enemies squaring up to have a massive fight. It’s especially funny when it’s two big names from the world of mobile phones. We’ve seen it before with Modu having a pop at Nokia, Microsoft having a pop at Google Android, and Apple yelling that they could ‘ave everyone with one hand tied behind their back, rah, rah, bring it on, etc…

Disheartening news, now, according to The Boy Genius Report. At the Symbian Smartphone Show in London, Sony Ericsson have explicitly stated that they believe UIQ (the Symbian interface that powers their top-end mobile phones, like the Sony Ericsson G900) is dead.

For any fans of their top-end mobile phones, that’s particularly sad news, so it’s not unreasonable that there’s some emotion and bad feeling in the air.

Much has been made, recently, of the brand new T Mobile G1, the first phone in history to be built around Google Android and how it will change the world of mobile phones. Equally, there’s been loads of talk this year about the iPhone, and how it will, yes, change the world of mobile phones.

But then, there’s a third player, and unusually (and refreshingly), this one isn’t saying it’s going to change the world of mobile phones.

According to USEB, Sony Ericsson are going on the offensive in the coming years, and re-taking their place at the head of the smartphone market. As part of the same announcement, Chief Technology Officer Mats Lindoff said that they’ve over-diversified, bringing out too many similar mobile phones in different product ranges (i.e. two virtually identical mobile phones released in say, the Walkman and Cyber-Shot camps).

Well, yes, a lot of people have noted that. Sister-phones, call them, or the copy-paste strategy. A lot of people have said they don’t like that strategy of making multiple variants of every single mobile phone Sony Ericsson make.