Motorola to buy half of UIQ from Sony Ericsson

Mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson has today announced a deal to sell 50 per cent of its UIQ mobile phone software business to Motorola.

The deal, which will see the two rival phone makers become equal partners in the UIQ platform comes eight months after Sony Ericsson announced plans to sell stakes to other vendors in an effort to open up the platform to potential partners and licensees.

Sony Ericsson purchased UIQ in November last year in a deal that gave it direct ownership of a Symbian-based phone operating system, and put it head-to-head with rival Nokia, the other major Symbian stakeholder through its S60 platform.

"UIQ will not be replacing our other mobile platforms. Instead, we will be using the best of the platform in the devices where it is best suited," said Alain Mutricy, senior vice president of platform and technology at Motorola.

"We believe that UIQ is very good at supporting multiple form factors. It has some key user interface features such as touch screen, which has once again become popular, as well as supporting multimedia applications," he added.

Motorola already uses the UIQ operating system on its Moto Z8 consumer handset, as well as using its own internally developed platform and Microsoft's Windows Mobile on other devices.

Miles Flint, the outgoing chief executive of Sony Ericsson added that the deal was important to move both the company's products and the software into new markets.

"We are committed to open platforms, and we are keen to take our products further into the high-end," said Flint, who will be stepping down as chief executive of Sony Ericsson at the end of this year.

"We set up a holding company, being careful not to bring it into Sony Ericsson as a division. The intention is not to run it just as a 50:50 joint venture, as there is a medium-term aim to bring other owners into the business. We remain committed to bringing other partners in, and between Sony Ericsson and Motorola we will continue to fund development of the platform."

In February 2007 in Barcelona, Flint and Sony Ericsson announced their intention to open up the UIQ platform and business to other owners, inviting rivals and other interested parties to invest in the business as a way to broaden the developer community and commercial opportunities for the platform.

"By sharing a common platform with Sony Ericsson, and potentially with others, will offer broader developer opportunities and value for ISVs, as well as allowing the platform to move into other devices and form factors," said Mutricy.

Motorola also talked-up the benefits of the deal for developers, announcing plans for investment in additional developer tools and reaffirming support for existing development technologies.

"For the developer community, we want to show our commitment to the platform and for its developers through investment and new developer tools and through continued support for Java," Mutricy added.

Johan Sandberg, current chief executive of the UIQ business said in a statement: "We are extremely excited to be working closely with Motorola and Sony Ericsson, two well-established vendors in the mobile space."

Exact financial details of the deal were not announced.

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