GREGORY FRAMEWORK OF TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT   PT3   1500W

In the first year of the joint venture’s operation, Sony-Ericsson lost 292 million and didn’t made profit until 2003. Sony and Ericsson were not satisfied with the performance of the joint venture. However, they still tried to inject capital into Sony-Ericsson in 2003. The Sony-Ericsson walkman branded mobile was doing well at the beginning. However, it had been over taken by music mobile from other manufacturer as iPhone and other brand recent years.

The collaboration between the two big companies has been considered as one of the most complex one. It took long time to implement and consolidate. Compare to the previous soft alliances, Sony aimed to build a stable collaboration to expand the mobile business. In summary, the joint venture is able to combine the technical strength from both sides. As identified before, Sony is good at the multimedia customer electronics. The first series of products is walkman portfolio. Sony transferred their multimedia technology to Sony-Ericsson. While Ericsson contributed the core handset technology and telecom infrastructure which enable Sony-Ericsson to release series of mobile phone based on cooperation with telecom operators. But due to Sony don’t want to invest at the beginning. The core handset technology still has been kept in EMP. This is one of the mistakes of Sony in this collaboration. EMP was focusing on integration of software to system. And it became one of the advanced research center on GSM and 3G. However the operation cost of EMP kept on increasing. Sony-Ericsson purchased chip with software from EMP, which was a high-cost component. Even though, EMP couldn’t balance the cost and income. It had to supply other mobile companies for sustaining. Sony-Ericsson can’t involve the management of the EMP. This will become a weak point in the future.

The managers of Sony-Ericsson initially came from Sony and Ericsson, but the management was isolated from Sony and Ericsson. The challenge issue here is the different culture of the two companies. Globalization is a common phenomenon everywhere. Even difference of culture can be solved in personal level. It’s quite difficult to merge a big group of people with totally different culture. Sony is a big international company. However, it still holds a perspe