As Sony Ericsson considers cutting its workforce by up to 2,000 employees--450 already have been served notice in the US--and rumours continue to circulate about Sony wanting to break up the partnership, the company's president, Dick Komiyama, has been hurriedly advising analysts on how the company can return to profitability.
Komiyama maintained that Sony Ericsson would continue to leverage the Walkman and Cyber-shot brands that it believes have been a considerable success so far. He also confirmed there would be greater focus on improving the user experience on its handsets, which would continue to differentiate the company in the market place. He pointed to its Capuchin service architecture and the Xperia X1 as two good examples of this.
However, Komiyama claimed the future for Sony Ericsson was in content, applications and services. The company's first step, which mimics Nokia and Apple, is with the launch of two new music services based on its existing PlayNow service. PlayNow Plus and PlayNow Arena will both offer a music download service drawing content from major record labels including Universal Music Group, EMI, Sony BMG and Warner Music.
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