Recent reports emerged suggesting that Sony and Panasonic (News - Alert) were considering their first-ever joint venture in the field of televisions, planning an OLED--Organic Light Emitting Diode--based television together for an eventual release.

The reports suggested that the combination of efforts would result in shorter time to development, and thus, being able to get their product lines out on shelves at a faster pace. Considering that some reports put rival LG as releasing their own 55 inch OLED television as early as August, and other rival Samsung (News - Alert) as being ready with their own 55 inch OLED to go to market not long after, shortened time to development can't be anything but helpful to laggards Sony and Panasonic, who have plans to commercialize OLED by the 2015 fiscal year, according to reports.

With recent data emerging suggesting that Sony and Panasonic alike had had disastrous recent quarterly reports due to a host of market-specific issues, as well as those unrelated to the market, it makes plenty of sense for the two to pool their efforts in a bid to get their engineering down on the next big television technology. It's especially fitting given that their two arguably biggest rivals are also within striking distance of actually putting these devices on the market. If Sony and Panasonic want to avoid more red ink-laden quarters, they'll need to be represented in the market, so pooling their R&D efforts to speed up the flow, reduce redundancies, and with that, reduce costs can't be anything but a good idea.

Sony and Panasonic need models on shelves. Granted, the price of the earliest models, much like the prices of most new technology's first steps, are going to be sufficiently high to keep large numbers out of the marketplace. But it's those first models that will get interest and keep everyone paying attention until economies of scale and large numbers of purchases step in to lower prices sufficiently to get them in the mainstream, and many reports suggest that OLED will take over from LCD as being the dominant display technology. For the sake of future television technology--not to mention smartphones, laptops, and other devices, Sony and Panasonic need to be in on that mainstream. They need a developed unit ready to go. And this is a smart way to do exactly that.