Tom tells his small audience to think beyond the eight megapixels on the new Cyber-shot phone, the C905. He is flicking through a Sony PlayStation console keypad with everyone staring at a massive Sony Bravia plasma television on the wall.
There are no wires between the PlayStation, the C905 Cyber-shot phone or the games controller.
He flicks through the PlayStation control pad to show photos taken from the phone on the television.
The C905 uses DLNA technology over Wi-Fi to link different devices with minimal effort.
Sony Ericsson’s UK MD, John Harber (pictured, right), had been championing DLNA years before he took the reins at the manufacturer. He previously worked on Sony’s Bravia and Vaio brands, where he was, to use his own words, ‘boring people with this amazing but geeky technology’.
Harber, who joined Sony Ericsson two-and-a-half years ago, adds: ‘Now we’re able to see it in a way that people are excited by.’
Harber has long been frustrated by what he calls ‘the commoditisation of features’ such as megapixels. ‘It’s not good for anyone to go down the “how many megapixels for how much” route.’
Harber along with sales director Nathan Vautier and marketing director David Hilton have the job of explaining that the C905 is more than just an eight-megapixel phone.
He wants Sony Ericsson to stand out from rivals by being widely known for ‘phones that offer a richer and better customer experience’.
Another leap is about to be taken on a new Walkman phone. No details are available at the moment, but it is expected to have a monster 16GB of memory and what is rumoured to be a large touch-screen format.
Both the C905 and the new Walkman will address the big criticisms aimed at Sony Ericsson over the last 18 months: too many similar phones and nothing that stands out.
