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Sony Ericsson has completed the acquisition of UIQ Technology, the Swedish company that develops and manages the platform the handset-maker uses for its smartphones.

The UIQ interface, like S60 from Nokia, runs on top of the Symbian operating system (OS). By gaining control of UIQ, which Sony Ericsson will still make openly available to other vendors - just as S60 is – the company will have a much larger say over the direction of the platform.

Sony Ericsson has built the majority of UIQ-based smartphones on the market, while Motorola and Arima are the companies mostly responsible for the rest.

UIQ Technology will operate as an independent subsidiary and, according to Sony Ericsson, continue to be licensed on equal terms to all its licensees.

Here's how the UIQ platform relates to the Symbian OS:

To use a housing metaphor, Symbian is the foundation, plumbing, and electrical system; the interface (UIQ or S60) is the furnishings and appliances; and the hardware is the frame upon which a smartphone is built. Between S60 and UIQ, the former is by far the more commonly-used interface, accounting for more smartphones worldwide than any other.

UIQ does offer some advantages over its rival, however. One of the most important, to many consumers and (obviously) Sony Ericsson, is its support for touch screens.

The latest edition of the UIQ platform, version 3, can be found running on Sony Ericsson's W950 Walkman phone, M600 dual-function keyboard model, and the P990—latest member of the most successful UIQ handset series ever, which began with the P800 and includes the P900 and P910.


         UIQ 3 App Launcher

Unlike earlier versions of the platform, UIQ 3 allows Sony Ericsson to develop smartphones without a touch screen and geared towards one-handed navigation.