CANNES, France—Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB announced Tuesday that IBM Global Services has agreed to use Sony Ericssons P800 smartphone to help enterprises extend wireless e-business solutions. Applications suited for this infrastructure include sales force automation for order management, stock control and travel.
Delivering a keynote address at the 3GSM World Congress here, Katsumi Ihara, president of Sony Ericsson, said an open, flexible solution will be needed in the mobile industry to encourage application developers to create more exciting services. “Many businesses will demand a more customized mobile solution,” Ihara said, adding that systems integrators will play a critical role in bringing all components of a mobile solution together.
Sounding a familiar theme at this years Congress, Ihara said that improved internetwork interoperability is necessary for multimedia messaging services to succeed.
In addition, mobile handsets will have to feature improved “usability,” Ihara said, and Sony Ericsson is incorporating the concept, called QuickShare, into handsets to make messaging and sharing images among the phone, PC, camcorder and other devices easy and intuitive, he said.
Specifically for business users, the London-based company is making available a GC82 EDGE PC Card for dual-band GSM networks in North America to provide fast access to corporate intranets and the Internet.
In the second half of this year, Sony Ericsson will launch its first dual-mode, GPRS/UMTS video handset, called the Z1010. It will include two built-in cameras, video telephony capability and high-speed network access. The product is aimed primarily at the consumer market.