Being invited to host the discussion at Sony Ericsson's first developer pub meeting was something of a privilege, although somewhat challenging; having only just completed 36 hours of travel and a 12 hour time shift. It was however a unique opportunity to quiz Niclas Almquist, General Manager Symbian Software, Jan Wäreby, Corporate Vice President, Sales and Marketing, and Mats Lindoff, CTO, about Sony Ericsson's plans for UIQ and the role of third party developers.

I started by asking about the apparent delays in the release of the P990i, which had caused some disquiet amongst developers. Two perspectives were offered on this. Firstly an admission that there had been technical challenges, Niclas noted that "it took us much longer than we expect (to complete) security framework and multimedia framework integration." At the same time Jan - who noted that his first Symbian OS phone project, the Ericsson R380, had been delayed by 2 years - commented that "one thing creating (the) perception of delay is announcing the product too early. We had that debate last fall and I got convinced that we needed to get this out in the open for developers. So we decided to go, perhaps a bit early, as we knew there were complexities (for third party developers)."

In some respects the smartphone market has become less certain, not more, in the last year or so, with much speculation about Linux. Given the issues with the P990 some have questioned whether Sony Ericsson would remain committed to UIQ. The answer to my questions left no doubt about Sony Ericsson's view. "We were the first out (with UIQ) and we are broadening the (UIQ) portfolio," said Jan. This was echoed by Mats who said, "We are really working heavily on increasing our product portfolio in UIQ. Next year you will see more products and we will offer more and a wider product portfolio and we are really focusing on UIQ as a platform."

So what was Sony Ericsson doing with the Z558, I wondered, a non UIQ 3 touchscreen phone that appeared to be taking UIQ like features to Sony Ericsson proprietary phones? This was simply about capturing a market demand in China, explained Niclas saying "UIQ is the best platform for developing our phones."

I wondered if the delays had not had an effect on the overall performance of Sony Ericsson. Jan stated that it did have an effect on the company; however Sony Ericsson has just announced record profits, 40% growth in sales, and increasing market share. So, despite the many challenges faced and overcome since the company took a strategic decision five years ago to work on creating a smartphone range, "today it's very easy to follow this (UIQ) strategy."

Although I asked in different way, looking for any uncertainty about UIQ, there was clearly a continued faith in UIQ and a drive to build a larger part of the Sony Ericsson product range on UIQ 3.

On the subject of significant volumes of UIQ phones from mid market devices Mats was less forthcoming, although he did point out that "to make them (UIQ phones) crappy is not the way to success". He then sighted Moore's Law and some of the improvements this will bring in the next couple of years, suggesting that Sony Ericsson was not perusing an "at all costs" migration of UIQ to the mid-range. Rather Sony Ericsson would maintain UIQ as the basis of flagship products and migrate to the mid range as the components became available to enable this without compromising the user experience.

One of interesting aspects of Sony Ericsson's product portfolio is the leverage it makes of Sony brands, Walkman and Cybershot in particular. However, in the area of games there is an interesting issue. The Sony PlayStation brand is strong and has a portable offering, but at the same time Sony Ericsson's UIQ devices include technology, such as graphics acceleration and OpenGL support that lend themselves to games. Was this not, I wondered, an issue for building a gaming offering around UIQ. In his reply Jan said "PSP and PS3 is such a fantastic experience, so we need some time to get up to par, but this is an opportunity we look forward to."

One of the key reasons Sony Ericsson seem to be sticking with UIQ is the ease of use it offers. As Mats noted, UIQ allows Sony Ericsson to "bring very advanced application to users in a very easy to use kind of way". For developers Niclas noted that UIQ3 offers a broader range of API while Symbian Signed and platform security allows operators "to really trust applications."

Questions about third party applications revealed that, as part of the expansion of UIQ within Sony Ericsson's portfolio, third party developers are seen as playing an important role, Nicolas noted that Sony Ericsson "need(s) third party innovation to succeed." When asked if the opportunity for third party developers was really that great, given the increasing number of functions packed into UIQ phones from the beginning, Jan noted that, in addition to the innovation that third party developers bring, third party developers can realize a time to market not achievable with embedded applications.

The session concluded with a broad question about the future: Niclas saw entertainment as a significant opportunity for third party developers, Jan reiterated that UIQ was the right decision and that Sony Ericsson would continue to leverage Sony brands, while for Mats the challenge was finding ways to make Web resources usable on smartphones.

Overall the session seemed to speak of commitment by Sony Ericsson, commitment to UIQ and a commitment to third party developers as an integral part of the success of Sony Ericsson's UIQ phones. Should I get asked to host something similar next year I think the focus of questions will not be on why developers should work with Sony Ericsson and UIQ, but on how to make the most of working with Sony Ericsson and UIQ.

The full discussion is available for viewing here.