Forum > Sony Ericsson / Sony > General > Interview of Nobuyuki Idei Chairman and CEO of Sony Corporation

"Perkins: What about your relationships with Palm and Symbian?

Idei: In terms of our OS strategy, it is not clear whether Symbian, which we share with the Nokia phones, is the right way to go for the mobile phone. And I can't tell you why Sony has a Symbian OS on its phones and Palm OS on its PDAs. [Laughs.] Even Bill Gates asked me if I was crazy. But this is our history. I really want to own either Symbian or Palm—I want to buy them. Three years ago the Palm was so simple, but it is getting better and better. My problem now is that as Palm licensee we have to pay them lots of money. Palm is like Apple—we don't know if they are a software company or a hardware company. But they have now split in two."

"Perkins: What about the rest of the mobile phone business, where is it going?

Idei: We have a joint venture with Ericsson, which for them is clearly kind of an exit strategy. They don't care about the mobile phone business, they care about the base-station business, which is 90 percent, now 100 percent of their business. Sony made the joint venture with Ericsson because we want to be covered by their IP patent umbrella, otherwise we have to pay nearly 15 percent to the GSM license holder. I wouldn't have been able to stand that."

"Perkins: What about Nokia?

Idei: Nokia is focused on volume—selling as many cell phones as possible at a low price. But in my observation, I am not sure they know very clearly what the real opportunity is in the telephone business. We are talking about secure distribution of music on the phone."