KEY POINTS:
It's a mild Sunday night here in Barcelona and across town launch parties are underway ahead of the Mobile World Congress which will set the agenda for the mobile phone industry for the coming year.
I ended up at the unveiling of Sony Ericsson's new phone line-up, which includes the Experia X1, the first Sony Ericsson phone to run Microsoft's Window's Mobile platform. It's easy to see the influence of the iPhone here and I'm sure I'll be witnessing many more not-so-subtle tips of the hat to the popular music phone in the coming days.
While the X1 features the familiar Windows Start menu and taps into mobile versions of Word and Excel, an interface designed by Sony Ericsson features the same type of touch-screen scrolling motion that the iPhone and iPod Touch employ.
The front screen is also very iPhone-esque, unlike any Windows Mobile device you've seen yet. Funnily enough, the X1 I looked at was a prototype and the Sony Ericsson person showing it off was afraid to use the cool scrolling motion in case the phone crashed. Obviously a bit of work to do on the software side before the launch in the second half of the year.
I caught up with Mats Lindoff, the geeky Swede who acts as Sony Ericsson's chief technology officer who said Sony Ericsson wasn't ditching the Symbian operating system in its high-end phones but wanted to give the more computer-centric Windows Mobile a run for people who want more office-type functionality on the road.
And while us journalists were quick to point out the iPhone similarities, the Experia features a full QWERTY keyboard, something Lindoff suggests isn't going to go away as a feature of the average smart phone, because not everyone wants to tap a screen with their finger. The Experia's keyboard has a nice slider action which lets it be unfolded from behind the screen with ease.
Engadget has a slide-show of photos of the Experia here.
It's a powerful little device - quad-band, running HSDPA and HSUPA, the former being the 3G mobile standard that in some countries supports downloads at speeds of up to 7.2Mbps (megabits per second). There's Wi-Fi, assisted GPS, stereo Bluetooth, 3.2 megapixel camera, MicroSD slot, three inch touch screen display and 400MB of onboard storage. No word yet on how much it will cost but expect it to be expensive.
Elsewhere the theme remains the same for Sony Ericsson - phones that tap Sony's Walkman and Cybershot product groups. The W980 is probably the best of the batch - a stylish clamshell music phone that comes with up to 8GB of built-in memory. It has a useful FM transmitter built into it, so you can play music stored on the W980 through your hi-fi system or car stereo.
LG once again has a big presence at the show and pre-empted the flood of new releases in Barcelona with news of its slinky new slider phone, the KF510.
I'll be interested to see what else they have to show.
Meanwhile, there's plenty of anticipation for processor-maker ARM's demo of phones running on Google's Android operating system.
Away from mobile phones, this feature on New Zealander Chris Liddell, Microsoft's chief financial officer is timely given the proposed Microsoft acquisition of Yahoo.
As Reuters reports: "Liddell has completed nearly 50 deals since joining the company in May 2005. His boldest move yet, Microsoft's US$41.9 billion offer to buy Yahoo Inc, would use up nearly all of a legendary cash stockpile Liddell inherited."
Or maybe not, if reports about Yahoo's decision to reject the Microsoft offer are true.
Maybe Yahoo just wants to provoke a better counter-offer from Microsoft but the company certainly seems to want to explore all the alternatives to a tie-up with Redmond before making any fateful decisions.
Peter Griffin attended the Mobile World Congress as a guest of Ericsson.
