Symbian specialist snaffled up by Sony Ericsson

FEW WILL be surprised to learn that UIQ - the Symbian user interface specialist, is to be acquired by Sony Ericsson, its biggest customer.

Currently UIQ is owned by Symbian, but unlike Psion's move to sell all its Symbian shares to Nokia, this decision is highly unlikely to be challenged.

Besides Sony Ericsson, only BenQ and Arima have used UIQ. Besides Motorola, of course, but Motorola's support for Symbian has always been half-hearted.

The benefits of Sony Ericsson's ownership are obvious, too. As UIQ's CEO, Johan Sandberg,commented, "It [the purchase] will give us the additional investment needed to compete in the rapidly expanding software market for advanced phones."

Plus UIQ's main base is in Sweden. And Symbian's largest shareholder, Nokia, doesn't use UIQ anyway. µ