Alvin.G

Sony Ericsson’s announcement of model M600, powered by a QWERTY-keypad, which is at the same time a smartphone working on Symbian 9.1 UIQ 3.0, doesn’t appear to be a sensible step – until the very recent times the company had specialized only on developing ultimate-solutions, covering maximum possible audience. As a matter of fact, the company was lacking facilities, thus couldn’t afford producing other handsets and widening line-ups. The release of М600 symbolizes taking one step forward – from invading the market to the next stage, where product line segmentation steps into the limelight and line-ups begin offering high profile solutions. The company doesn’t suppose that Sony Ericsson M600 will dominate over the market and hit higher sales rates than Sony Ericsson P990 – even considering the fact M600 costs less and possess eye-candy shapes. The main explanation why the handset isn’t aimed at securing a significant market share is unwillingness to create competition without the company’s own product line – that’s why the device doesn’t have camera module and WiFi embedded, since if it had both of them, it would be a direct rival to P990, but it’s evident, that this kind of competition is very dangerous. Putting the cart before the horse, I will note that the next justified step is producing a truly mass product based off М600, armed with a standard keyboard, but with a touchscreen. A device of this type may become a line-up’s flagship along with Sony Ericsson K800i. In favor of its release one can say that Sony Ericsson strictly follows UIQ concept, which describes various types of devices and combinations of control elements.