Sony Mobile chief: We won't make Windows Phone 8 smartphones

Sony Mobile Communications does not have plans to use Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows Phone 8 software, according to the head of Sony Mobile. The comments serve to clear up confusion about Sony's stance on the platform.

"We have no current plans for it," Sony Mobile CEO Kunimasa Suzuki said in an interview with German newspaper Die Welt. Speculation about Sony's plans for Windows Phone flared up last week after a regional Sony Mobile chief seemed to leave open the door for working with Microsoft on smartphones.

"Sony's strategy is one of openness. Microsoft is a Sony partner with the likes of our VAIO laptops and it's integrated onto our tablets," Pierre Perron, Sony Mobile's managing director for the UK and Ireland, told Mobile Magazine last week. "As far as Xperia smartphones go, Android remains the preferred partner, although Sony is not a single partner company. We are currently investigating with the likes of Microsoft the possibility of diversifying our product strategy."

Sony's smartphones, under the Xperia brand, all run on Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android platform. Suzuki indicated that would not change and said the company is "not planning to equip our smartphones with its own [proprietary] operating system."

Sony said last month it will cut 15 percent of the workforce of Sony Mobile, or around 1,000 jobs, and will move its global mobile headquarters from Lund, Sweden, to Tokyo. According to ABI Research, Sony Mobile was the eleventh-largest handset maker in the world in the second quarter with 2 percent market share.

For more:
- see this Die Welt article (translated via Google Translate)
- see this Mobile Magazine article

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