Despite some nasty financial losses and a rumored smackdown of a PSP phone proposal, the Sony Ericsson joint venture is apparently as strong as ever. That's what Senior Marketing Manager Richard Dorman is saying, denying any talks of a split. He also noted that both companies had been losing money in their respective handset division prior to the assimilation, and the partnership is "full steam ahead." That's great, now how about showing us some more Hikaru, hm?

DoCoMo and Fujitsu are showing off some interesting phone tech in Japan at this year's CEATEC, particularly a concept device which can be split into two pieces. The gadget features a separate screen and keyboard segment, and the pieces can be configured in a standard flip-phone-like arrangement, or snapped together to form an X1 or Touch Pro-esque landscape QWERTY variation. The two halves are held together by magnets and communicate via Bluetooth. Of course, right now this is very much in the concept phase, and honestly -- aren't we trying to minimize the amount of electronic components we're carting around? Still, it's a fairly slick design, and certainly a new way of thinking about phones. Take another look after the break, and hit the read link for a slew of pics.

The board of directors has agreed to split Motorola into two independent, publicly-traded companies. The new entities will be called Mobile Devices and Broadband & Mobility Solutions. The Mobile Devices business will focus on the design, manufacturing, and sales of mobile handsets and accessories globally. The Broadband & Mobility Solutions business covers Moto's enterprise, government, public safety, and home and networks business. Greg Brown, Motorola's president and CEO, says the reason for the split is easy, "Creating two
industry-leading companies will provide improved flexibility, more tailored
capital structures, and increased management focus - as well as more targeted
investment opportunities for our shareholders." Right, weren't those the reasons for the Palm split? The matter is of course subject to regulatory approvals, but Motorola hopes that the transaction is complete "in 2009."

P.S. We're not sure whether this is a sad or happy Moto logo day. Regardless, we went with sad until we see signs of a turnaround.

[Thanks, Matt E.]

'Tis a sad day for those at BenQ Mobile, as the Munich-based company will reportedly be split up and sold after failing to turn around the struggling unit it acquired from Siemens AG. Honestly though, this shouldn't come as any major surprise, as the endeavor has already had its plug pulled and suffered through an investigation into its bankruptcy filing, so it's simply following the unfortunately necessary series of events as its dwindles into oblivion. The outfit's insolvency administrator announced that there would be "no realistic chance" of it being sold off as a whole, but didn't elaborate on exactly which portions would be segmented for bidding. Furthermore, it's suggested that "nearly all of the 3,000 jobs" at the division would vanish, but at least 550 have purportedly already found employment in other areas. I guess we should now cue the sappy background music as we sneak a peek at BenQ mobiles that could have been, but sadly never were never will be.