According to Sydsvenskan.se, Sony Ericsson turned down the opportunity to build the Nexus One. We knew that Sony Ericsson didn’t want to sell their phones through google.com/phone, but to turn down the opportunity to build the premier Android phone? Yep, that’s how it went down according to SE CEO Bert Nordberg.
We guess we can kind of, sort of understand why Sony Ericsson didn’t want to build the Nexus One, especially if their end goal is to push their own UI over Android. If they want a consistent model for their phone lineup, building one for Google wouldn’t have fulfilled that. But even with that explanation, it’s very shortsighted to not want to partner up with Google for Google’s Android on Google’s phone. The Nexus One clearly has a leg up on the competition (it runs Android 2.1), who wouldn’t want to make that phone now?
We’re actually more surprised that Google asked Sony Ericsson in the first place. HTC had been such a wonderful partner for Google and Android and was fully capable of building a stellar device (as proven by the actual Nexus One itself), that it’s almost shocking that Google would approach another phone manufacturer. To us, HTC exemplifies what we want in a handset. It was a no brainer for HTC to build the Nexus One and we’re happy it ended up that way.
And maybe Sony Ericsson could build a device as awesome as HTC built the Nexus One, but then it probably wouldn’t be available until April. What do you guys think about Sony Ericsson turning down Google?
[via engadget]