Android watch: Sony Ericsson joins OHA, says Android phone on the way

The name "Open Handset Alliance" sounds like an afterschool club for roleplaying gamers or hardcore a/v nerds ... which I suppose it is, since those former D&D'ers and Beta-heads are now running our economy at the helms of companies like Google and Sony Ericsson. Still, the OHA moniker cracks me up a little bit every time I see or hear it.

I should get with the program, though, as OHA announced this morning that its ranks have swelled by 14, including handset makers ASUS and Sony Ericsson, would-be handset maker Garmin, and European carrier Vodafone.  Sony Ericsson was excited enough about learning OHA's secret handshake and half-hi-five handshake that they issued a press release about the whole deal: 

?Sony Ericsson is excited to announce its membership of the Open Handset Alliance and confirm its intention to develop a handset based on the Android platform,? said Rikko Sakaguchi, CVP and head of Creation and Development at Sony Ericsson. ?We believe Sony Ericsson can bring a wealth of experience in making consumer focused multimedia handsets with new user experience to the Alliance drawing on the successes of the Walkman and Cyber-shot sub-brands.  Sony Ericsson is a strong supporter of open operating systems and we believe the Open Handset Alliance offers an exciting opportunity for a new and unique user experience only Sony Ericsson can deliver.?

There are a few thoughts I've got on the matter which I'll pose to you Jeopardy-style - that is, in the form of questions:

• Can Sony Ericsson actually harness what they're good at (putting solid cameras and media players into handsets) and ditch what's plagued them as of late (grappling with UIQ and Windows Mobile) and actually churn out an Android-powered multimedia beast?
• If so, can they do it in a timely fashion?  If you'll recall, the last ... million or so, was it? ... high-end SE devices were amongst the most delayed handsets in the history of cell phone production.  Some of them were finally released (X1), some were released but ditched by US carriers (K850), and others were scrapped altogether ("Paris" P5).
• Does Garmin's inclusion in the OHA mean that their still-forthcoming Nuvifone will finally be released, and will run Android to boot?  Or will Garmin release Nuvifone and follow it up with an Android device?  Or has Nuvifone been scrapped altogether?
• And what of ASUS?  They showed off some interesting looking smartphones on the trade show circuit earlier this year, but we haven't heard much from their mobile phone division since.  Could we be looking at an Android-powered line of "EeePhones" in 2009?

These questions and many more to be answered in forthcoming installments of As the OHA Turns ... Right here on PhoneDog.