Sony Ericsson has announced that it has opened a new global research and development (R&D) centre in Beijing, China. This operations hub will be used to bolster both local and international R&D efforts and is the company’s second largest R&D hub globally. Sony Ericsson also has R&D centres in Lund (Sweden), Japan and North America.
In other news, Sony Ericsson has announced that Yoshihisa (Bob) Ishida will be appointed Deputy CEO on 1 September, replacing Rikko Sakaguchi who is taking a position at Sony Corporation. Ishida is currently President of Sony’s Home Entertainment Business Group. He has previously been involved with Sony’s TV and Vaio businesses. For Sony Ericsson, Ishida will be responsible for the design centre and product/portfolio development teams. To us it seems that the appointment will strengthen the leverage between Sony Corp and Sony Ericsson and hopefully greater integration of content. This can only be good news for Sony Ericsson fans.