The hard times continue for Sony Ericsson.  First comes Sony CEO (Sir) Howard Stringer's recent comments to Reuters about the future of his company's joint venture with cell phone maker Ericsson.  "We have to work together again as we did two years ago. Or the joint venture will have to find its own solution," Stringer said.  Ouch.  That translates to "Shape up or ship out, Ericsson," so far as I can tell.

Then came word that SE's most hyped product in years (in a few years, anyway), the Xperia X1 smartphone, may be delayed past the end of this year.  The X1 was shown off last week at IFA, and Engadget Mobile reported on the sorry state of the mostly non-functional display units in SE's show booth.  That report - along with various rumors about a delay that would push the X1's launch past the "second half of 2008" date SE's been targeting since the phone was announced - forced SE reps to reiterate to the press that everything is, in fact, still on target with the company's first venture into Windows Mobile land.

As WMpoweruser reported, Sony Ericsson spokeswoman Merran Wrigley pointedly denied any delays with the X1.  ?There is absolutely no delay. The product is on track. We have said it will roll out in Q4 and we are on target to do that.? said Merran.  Lookin' forward to it, Merran!  Seriously - as I've said before, I've always liked Ericsson and SE phones, and am looking forward to their getting out of this slump that they've been in since ... well, I'd say since the launch of their last great phone, the K790a.