Sony Ericsson CEO promises Windows Phone 7 handsets, but not until next year

Sony Ericsson Chief Executive Officer Bert Nordberg told investors in a conference call they will be looking to Windows Phone 7 to diversify their offerings.

The company, which aims to be the largest supplier of Android handsets (but who is still quite far off that goal) has announced their decision to drop support for Symbian handsets some weeks ago, apparently because the “ecosystem” isn’t as good as Android’s.

That would however leave the company completely dependent on Google’s largesse, and while the company promises to not “be evil” this is never a good position.

Nordberg however told Dow Jones Newswires that Sony Ericsson has no plans to launch any phones running on Windows Phone 7 before Christmas. The company didn’t reveal plans to launch any other devices ahead of the peak end-year period either.

Analysts however consider this a mistake.

“They will need a successor to the X10, which I expect to be announced this quarter, and they also need to launch on Windows Phone 7 quite soon,” said Daniel Djurberg, Stockholm-based analyst for Nordea Bank..

“Christmas might be tougher than they want it to be as the new Windows Phone 7 products hit the market and add to the Android competition,” added Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Gartner Inc.’s U.K. unit.

Sony Ericsson is famous for announcing handsets and then delaying availability until the market has seemingly lost interest in their offerings. By failing to be part of the initial assault of Windows Phone 7 handsets on the market the company may be missing out on free marketing associated with the Microsoft push, and may find itself competing with a first generation product when other OEM’s have already moved on to the second generation.

Earlier today parent company Ericsson’s share price was down 1.6% at SEK71.00 on the news.

Read more at Bloomberg and Wall Street Journal here.