Sony Buys Out Ericsson to Take Full Control of the Mobile Phone Company
posted Sunday Oct 30, 2011 by Nicholas DiMeo
Sony looks like they might be doing something right here for once. This week, they will be acquiring full ownership of Sony Ericsson, removing Swedish company L.M. Ericsson Telephone from the picture. This will allow Sony to further their mission to put more music, games and videos on their devices.
This move will cost Sony $1.46 billion in exchange for the 50% share that Ericsson currently has. This also involved a patent and licensing agreement between the two companies, where Sony will now be in control of five important patents from Ericsson.
The acquisition will be another page in the "patent war" chapter of the book of mobile devices as of late. We talk about that after the break.
If you haven't been keeping up with the entire battle of patents recently, you've been missing out. You're going to want to read up on them to understand how important this buyout is. From Microsoft making money off of every Android device sale to the Rockstar Consortium, companies are scooping up patents by the bucket full in order to gain the upper hand. Why innovate when you can sue, right? Sony sees this as an opportunity to capitalize on something after their hundreds of mistakes lately and this is a smart decision on their part.
Also, with Sony taking full control, they can integrate their smartphones with the other products, perhaps their PlayStation Network and TVs. Maybe, through all of the dust from their disasters, it is possible that Sony will actually finish out the year a little stronger than when they started. Will we see another Walkman phone? A man can dream.
