Sony

If you want to work with smartphones and you can't get into RIM, Nokia, Apple, etc., your choice may be Sony Ericsson in California going forward. I'm not sure how long that experience will last, though.

The SW developers seem to have become a bit more unleashed, and some nice UX is coming along on the upcoming phones.

The old platform (OSE running on Ericsson EMP) has been moved to China, and focus is now on smartphones. Some nice form factors are about to be released using some of the leading smartphone OS'es.

Pretty relaxed work environment, but appearances can be deceiving, as this is consumer products after all, and deadlines have to be kept.

Well, at least that applies to the grassroots.

Horrible standards of communication from middle management and up. You basically can't trust anything they say as far as major developments go, as they prefer to keep people in the dark, one can surmise, to "increase productivity".

Lack of clear focus. Even now they can't focus on one platform (Windows Mobile, Android, Symbian) but split forces, focus, and teams on two or three, with duplicated efforts. Madness or genius? Take your pick.

Even when they had 20-30+ phone projects going on, Sony Ericsson still had the appearance of a startup company in terms of organizational efficiency, learning from past mistakes, and quality control. Too many chiefs and not enough Indians to execute their vacillating wishes.

This could probably be blamed on having four major development centers around the world, each competing for resources and duplicating some efforts, but the failure to succeed in the US, one of the biggest and most competitive markets, where high value and quality at reasonable cost became unattainable.

Don't even mention low-cost phones. Not possible for Sony Ericsson. Perhaps high-end $700 smartphones, the final frontier, will keep the ship afloat a few (two to three?) more years...

But with the maintained lack of focus in developing for several platforms, using duplicated development which does not communicate with each other, it looks more like a desperate (read: same old, same old) approach than a serious comeback.

I hope I'm wrong, because if they had real leadership able to forge a one-mind team, this company and its engineers would probably kick ass. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a culture of openness willing to listen to critique.

See above