Motorola Buys Half Of UIQ From Sony Ericsson

Sony (NYSE: SNE) Ericsson (NSDQ: ERIC) will sell half of its smartphone software unit UIQ (bought from Symbian last year) to Motorola (NYSE: MOT) for an undisclosed sum. “It’s not a merger, it’s not a joint venture. We are creating a platform which can be shared by a number of operators,” said Sony Ericsson’s president, Miles Flint according to Reuters. The companies aim to bring in a third member but wouldn’t be drawn on when that could occur, only that “a long-term goal to take the market top spot from Nokia’s (NYSE: NOK) S60″, which has 47.9 percent of the smartphone market. Sony Ericsson has trebled the headcount of UIQ to 350 since it bought it.

“Motorola … has decided to add more investment in multimedia product segments and the investment in UIQ is one of the actions to support that strategy” said Motorola’s senior vice-president for platforms, Alain Mutricy, when asked if this move was an attempted response to Motorola’s dismal results this year. Investrend notes that activist investor Carl Icahn has threatened to withdraw his interest in Motorola after failing to win a seat on the board and apparently still displeased with the manufacturer’s performance — he owns about 2 percent of Motorola’s outstanding shares.