Ericsson Wants Out of the Phone Business: Say What?

Reports today claim that Ericsson could be hankering to get out of the mobile phone business.

InformationWeek this week reports (citing German publication Manager-Magazin) that Ericsson may want to withdraw from the mobile phone business. Ericsson has said that it may want to break away from its 50 percent partnership in Sony Ericsson to focus on “backend telecommunications infrastructure” as the economy worsens.

"In economic terms, 2008 has been a tumultuous year with world markets experiencing a serious downturn," Sony Ericsson president Dick Komiyama said. "We foresee a continued deterioration in the marketplace in 2009, particularly in the first half."

Similar rumors are reported over at Boy Genius Report, with a little extra thrown in for good measure. Apparently not only is Ericsson planning

on dumping cell phones for good, but Sony is contemplating buying out Ericsson’s share of the company and soldiering on without it.

If these rumors turn out to be true, we’ll be really disappointed. While some of the Sony Ericsson models as of late have been a little iffy (my W910i is prone to frequent but random crashing and replacing the handset did nothing to fix the problem) my first encounter with Ericsson was the company’s Ericsson T10s handset back in the late 90s and it was a great device. Ah, simpler times.

Surely some of you own a Sony Ericsson phone. What do you make of this news?