We’d be happy to talk to people out there who work in any segment of the industry, to help us gain insights. We’re also always looking for bloggers to interview, as well. If you maintain a blog on the subject of mobile phones, then we’d love to hear from you.

Merely contact us using the instructions in that post and we’ll get started.

I recently had the chance to do a 6 question interview with a spokesperson of Sony Ericsson on their new mobile phone, the K-790. This mobile phone doubles as a high end camera.

1. The Sony Ericsson Cybershot phone looks very impressive. How is this phone different from other phones offered by Sony-Ericcson?

While Sony Ericsson has long been synonymous with quality imaging phones, the K790 Cyber-shot phone is more than ordinary camera phone with a Cyber-shot logo it. From the beginning the phone user interface boasts the well known Cyber-shot menu and feeling. Our continuous search for picture quality improvement lead us to use a great 3.2 MegaPixel camera module, which together with the Xenon flash allows you to take crisp, clear and colorful pictures even in the darkest environments.

To further enhance the experience, we added support for image and video stabilization and the unique function called BestPic, a useful feature when taking photos of subjects that move (or of people that always seem to close their eyes when their photo is being taken). BestPic allows you to catch moments that happen before the actual key press. BestPic will start taking photos once the autofocus has been activated and it will continue to do so until you decide to take the shot. In addition it will give you four more photos after the key has been pressed. In total, nine pictures are presented in full resolution (4+1+4) for you to choose from.

We felt an urge to go further to deliver a true mobile Cyber-shot experience. Thus, we developed the Photo Blogging application, the fastest, easiest and most convenient way to share pictures with friends and family using the World Wide Web. To make this the best possible experience for the user we partnered with Google Blogger, one of the world’s largest blog service providers.

2. How easy is it for people to share and print their photos taken with the Cybershot?

The K790 supports PictBridge, a common standard for connecting devices such as digital still cameras and phones to a printer without using a computer. The standard is supported by many manufacturers of printers including Canon, Fuji, HP, Olympus, Seiko Epson and Sony. The user can connect the K790 to a PictBridge compliant printer using the included USB cable. The print command is found in the Cyber-shot user interface.

3. Does the Cybershot phone offer Video Recording Capabilities?
Yes

4. What type of customer is this product geared towards?

The K790 targets a consumer group called Selective Pioneers by Sony Ericsson. They want to be perceived as “connoisseurs.” Symbols of success, wealth and status are important and technology is for showing off as well as for use. We believe the K790 has the potential to attract a broad range of Selective Pioneers, users of digital still cameras today as well as those considering starting using one.

We see three different scenarios:
• People who do not carry their digital still camera every day, but quite often regret that they have left it at home. As always, they have their phone in the pocket. .
• People who have a camera phone today but want to be able to take better pictures on more occasions. They are looking for quality improvements like better resolution and a real flash.
• People who have a mobile phone without camera today and want a new phone and a digital camera as well. They are attracted by the design and the capacity of having a great phone and a great camera in one.

5. What other “must have” features does the Cybershot offer?

When looking at the phone and messaging related features of the K790, one soon realizes that it is an advanced mobile phone too. EDGE technology keeps the speed up when browsing the web, receiving RSS news feeds via the Internet or sending e-mail. It supports push e-mail with instant delivery of important messages forwarded from a company e-mail server. Support of USB 2.0 mass storage and Memory Stick Micro™ (M2™) give consumers the option to expand the memory capacity of the phone with up to 1 GB, and even more when memory cards of higher capacity become available. The K790 also has a music player and a video player. With the Disc2Phone software and USB cable in the phone package, the user can rip CDs and transfer them to the internal memory or on an optional memory card. Stereo headphones are included. Synchronization of the calendar and contacts in the phone with Microsoft Outlook in a computer can be done via the USB cable or Bluetooth™.

6. Is there anything you’d like to mention that wasn’t specifically asked above?

Color: Velvet Black
Type of screen: 262,144 color TFT
Screen resolution: 240 x 320 pixels
Talk time/Standby time GSM: Up to 7 hrs/350hrs

Availability: Fall 2006; MSRP $499, but we expect to see it in the 300’s with carrier promotions.

Please visit: Sony Ericsson

The following 6 Question Interview was answered by a Virgin Mobile USA Spokesperson.

1. What market is the Switch_Back Phone designed to appeal to?

A. Like many Virgin Mobile handsets, Switch_Back appeals particularly to the teen market – though people across the youth market and beyond will enjoy its design and cool features.

2. How is the Switch_Back phone different from other phones available through Virgin Mobile?

A. Switch_Back is currently the only phone with a full QWERTY keyboard priced at less than $150 – an affordable price tag for the full slate of features that users receive. It’s also the first wireless handset to include AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) already loaded and ready to run, giving the young person on the go another way to stay in touch.

The Switch_Back also provides access to Virgin Mobile’s new penny texting offers such as 1000 text messages for $9.99.
Power to the penny!

3. Please describe the efforts that went into designing and manufacturing this phone?

A. Virgin Mobile’s portfolio of phones offers something for everyone. Every time we develop a new phone, we take both functionality and form into account. We want our customers to not only be able to use the phone easily but also for them to like using it. For the Switch_Back in particular, we wanted to offer a product designed to make emailing, texting, IMing, gaming or browsing straightforward and enjoyable. A key part of the development of any handset is speaking with our users. We have a large group of customers we work with in brining a handset like Switch_Back to life. It’s our way of making sure our users’ fingerprints are all over our brand.

4. What is your favorite “thing” on this phone?

A. The QWERTY keyboard – which makes texting, IMing or emailing a breeze – is the obvious choice. The fact that the phone can be used in two ways (closed for voice calls or open for texting) is a fantastic feature. But one of the great things about Switch_Back is that it has something for everyone – preloaded demo games like Tetris and Lemonade Tycoon; downloadable full-color games, wallpapers and screensavers; access to exclusive *MTV content; a Joke of the Day or a South Park Brain Probe quiz from Comedy Central; Rescue Rings for users to save themselves from sticky situations and even a way to identify a song heard on the radio or in a club with the Song ID feature.

5. Do you currently offer any other phones with a full QWERTY keyboard?

A. Switch_Back is our first phone with a full QWERTY keyboard, but because we’ve seen that texting has really become “the new talk,” we’ll definitely continue to take the popularity and growth of text messaging into account as we develop new handsets.

6. Why would you recommend this phone to others?

The Switch_Back is an ideal phone for anyone who wants to take staying connected to another level – whether through texting, instant messaging, web browsing or more – but also wants access to a great phone.

1. What Nokia product are you most excited about?

That’s almost impossible to answer – it’s sort of like asking who your favorite child is. We are certainly excited about many of our new enterprise devices, like the Nokia E61, which combines a popular design with Nokia’s successful S60 platform and great push e-mail capability as well as many of our new N-Series devices, like the Nokia N93 with its 3.2 megapixel camera and optical zoom and the Nokia 91 that can store thousands of songs on its 4GB hard drive.

But, I am personally really excited by a new technology that will begin shipping this year on our Nokia 6136 phone – UMA. UMA (Unlicensed Mobile Access) will allow the cellular network to hand calls over to a Wi-Fi access point in your home or office. While the new VoIP services are great, this is really interesting to me since it is integrated into the cellular system – it’s almost like your mobile operator has erected a little base station – just for you – right in your living room.

2. What makes this product different from other Nokia products?

UMA really helps to change the way that people think about mobile phones – Nokia or otherwise. Many people still think of a cell phone as their ‘road device’ and their landline as their ‘home device’. Indoor coverage can still be spotty in areas, which keeps people from realizing the potential of having one phone number that goes with them everywhere. UMA changes that – allowing people to think of their wireless device not just as their “cell phone” but as their “phone”, period.

3. How much time, manpower and efforts were put into the development of this Nokia product?

All of Nokia’s products are the result of years of effort of Nokia’s more than 50,000 global employees. It’s really almost impossible to pinpoint that one single phone took X number of months and X people to build – the product development process is much more fluid and inclusive than that. On a device like the Nokia 6136, the look and feel of the device, and the user interface, draw from all of the Nokia devices that have come before it – it’s all part of Nokia’s DNA, that makes one Nokia device so familiar to anyone who has ever used one before. And the UMA technology was the result of a standardization process that brought people together from different companies in the industry to develop this new industry standard.

4. How will this product improve peoples lives?

For many people, UMA technology will mean that they will have the freedom to have one number, whether at home or away, fulfilling the promise of your phone number not being tied to a place, but instead being tied to a person. After all, when you call someone, it’s because
you want to connect to them – not to their house.

5. How important is customer feedback when developing/designing Nokia Cell Phones?

Customer feedback is extremely important. Recently, Nokia talked to 41,000 individuals to build an all-new segmentation model that will allow us to best design and produce devices that will fit the needs of a variety of users – whether it is a first-time user in a developing market or a technology aficionado looking for the most cutting edge new device. Also, we take feedback that comes to us through multiple channels – including our new Nokia Flagship Stores – and deliver the information back into the product development process so that we can best serve our customers.

6. Is there anything else that you’d like to add that wasn’t specifically asked above?

I would invite anyone who is interested in wireless to visit our new Nokia Flagship Store in Chicago, or in September, the new location in New York City. Our customers have really enjoyed the opportunity to see, try out and buy the largest selection of Nokia devices anywhere. Not only that, they can interact with the Nokia staff on hand – each of them are great to talk to about all sorts of wireless topics. They have all had weeks and weeks of training with Nokia product experts, and can talk wireless with the best of them. For anyone interested in mobile devices, it’s a great place to spend time.