When the 3GSM World Congress opens today Miles Flint will be looking and listening as much as showing off Sony Ericsson’s products and services.

“We do come to things like 3GSM with products and ideas, portfolio plans to share with operators but, as much as anything, we are listening, trying to detect what the trends are, what’s emerging and piecing the jigsaw together,” says the president of the London-based Swedish-Japanese joint venture, who borrows from a popular 1990s phrase to describe the show as a “market of conversations”.