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Tonight’s Sony Ericsson press event in Barcelona wasn’t just about announcing new handsets (although we will come to that), it was also a chance to see what the company plans to do in the months and years ahead and we were treated to some interesting soundbites, not the least of which came from Sir Howard Stringer, President of parent company Sony.

Let’s deal with the handsets first though. The big news of the night was of course the extension of the X10 family of handsets. Not only did we see Robyn become official, but also the X10 Mini Pro, a QWERTY version of Robyn. The fact that there are now three X10 handsets underscores just how important this family of products is to Sony Ericsson. The X10 itself has been grabbing many a blog headline and stoking many a tweet over the past few months and now we have two variants. Some are saying tha the X10 Mini and Mini Pro are underwhelming, but I disagree. Here we have another two Android handsets and importantly we have some choice in how to approach Android from Sony Ericsson. Not everyone goes for a big touch sensitive slab and now they have a choice of a smaller version or even a QWERTY version. Isn’t choice the very thing many of us have been saying is lacking in SE’s portfolio? Similarly Vivaz Pro is a welcome addition. Yes it is pretty much the same as Vivaz, but it at least taps into the zeitgeist; QWERTY handsets have been very popular in recent months as have touchscreens. It’s about time SE got in on the action. All these handsets were given release dates of Q2. Do we believe them? I’ll leave that to you to make up your mind about …

Some interesting comments came out of tonight’s events. During the Q&A session Sir Howard Stringer, President of Sony, was asked about comments he had made 2 years ago saying he was disappointed with SE’s performance.

Q. “Two years ago, you said that you weren’t happy with the performance of Sony Ericsson. What changed?”

Stringer: “I don’t remember what I said last week, much less two years ago“.

That will be reassuring to Sony’s shareholders! However, Sir Howard also said “We fully support Bert and his team at Sony Ericsson” and he rounded off the night by stating that he was “… feeling a minor wave of euphoria right now“. Why is that so important? Because it might finally to put to bed any rumours of Sony pulling out of the joint venture with Ericsson.

Talking about the mobile market in general Stringer predicted mobiles would take on ever more roles from wallets to keys to I.D. Of course much of that is actually reality today in Sony’s home market of Japan so it’s not a great leap to project it onto the rest of the world. However, it is reassuring to know that these sort of ideas are being discussed and put forward at Sony Ericsson for the rest of the globe.

Not to be outdone Bert ‘Ass Kicker’ Nordberg made a very strong statement at the start of the event: “Going forward, I think you’ll see we have the most quality products in the wireless industry“. Those are big words indeed and whilst some might scoff and deride Mr Nordberg let’s just take a moment to appreciate what it is exactly he is saying here. Reading between the lines he is saying that he knows SE haven’t been at the top of their game, but that he wants that to change and he is setting the goal at nothing short of being the best of the best. Unrealistic? I don’t think so and it’s good to see SE setting themselves such lofty goals because nothing short of excellence is what they need right now. Go Bert go!

Bert shot straight from the hip again later on in the event when someone mentioned Satio’s software issues and asked about the new devices:

Q. “Will these new devices be spot-on?”

Bert: (firmly) “Yes.”

No messing about from Bert there!