EU clears Sony Ericsson and Motorola’s UIQ deal

 

Sony Ericsson won European backing on Wednesday and is now cleared to sell 50 percent stake of software developer UI Holdings BV (owner of UIQ) to its rival, Motorola Inc. The European Commission cleared the deal after identifying no antitrust problems and receiving no complaints from rivals.

Sony and Motorola have not disclosed the value of the stake in UI Holdings, the parent company of UIQ Technology AB, UIQ licenses open user interface and development platforms to mobile phone vendors.

Sony Ericsson, itself a 50-50 joint venture between Japanese Sony Corp. and Swedish LM Ericsson aka. ‘Ericsson’, has expressed how they feel this deal will help make UIQ a stronger player when it comes to UI sales for a growing smart- and mediaphone market. UIQ is now a keyplayer in the UI game. Details in in the agreement state UIQ Technology will be vendor and chipset independent and will be licensed equally to all mobile device vendors in the industry.

As you know, both Motorola and Sony Ericsson have launched several UIQ devices in the past, including the Z8 and the W960 which I’ve recently written about.

 

[Via Yahoo news]