2011 was the year of takeovers, with Motorola Mobility becoming part of Google, while Sony announced a buyout of all the Ericsson stakes into Sony Ericsson. This news came in October and now we’re in the final stages of the deal, with some Sony-branded phones already appearing in press conferences. And finally, the European Commission has given its blessing for this takeover.
Sony’s CEO, Sir Howard Stringer announced during a press conference at this month’s CES that the new unit of the company he leads will now be called Sony Mobile Communications. Inside sources say that for a while we’ll see both Sony Ericsson and Sony Mobile Communications branded devices. The buyout is worth $1.05 billion and includes quite a bunch of patents and useful technology that Sony will use wisely in the future. This is nowhere near the 12 billion that Google had to pay for Motorola, but its patents are pure gold for all Android partners, Sony included.
Let’s just hope that all these takeovers don’t end half as bad as the one of Palm by HP… I have a feeling that 2012 will bring more movements like these, with RIM being the favourite for a takeover and maybe even Nokia, according to some influential bloggers and inside sources.
