I agree, however nice Fairphone is, it is marginal phenomenon just as Jolla is.
Sony, OTOH is a player of another tier. Having Sony for partner is importance of an order of magnitude greater than partnering with FP.

Jolla did everything they could with Fairphone, at the end of the day it was Fairphone who chose not to pursue an official device.

Clearly Fairphone thought it was not worth doing, and considering they are struggling to survive right now I guess it would have spread them a little too thin.

Mike, anything else you rant about will invariably be turned into how your decision was not supported; not the other way around. Simply stated, blame Fairphone if you're unwilling to blame yourself.

Sony + Jolla? Okay, perhaps now that means I'll get a device that'll work in the US on our weird as hell frequencies.

Good times indeed.

Just to temper the excitement here, this doesn't sound like Sony has decided to start selling Sailfish OS on their devices. From what I have read, they have a program called Sony Open Devices Program that allows a developer to create a custom AOSP ROM and to then upload it to one of their devices, presumably not invalidating the warranty and providing some degree of support. It sounds like Jolla have found some way to create such a ROM. I assume you would still be buying your standard Sony phone in the shop with some sort of version of Android installed, and that through some sort of process, you would then reflash it with the custom ROM (ie. Sailfish). Presumably, this installation won't invalidate your warranty, and you would still go to Sony if HW issues existed, but I imagine if issues exist with the OS, you are on your own. Also, people questioning whether Alien Dalvik will be supported? Of course it will.

Not that I am complaining. All I ever wanted was to be able to buy a decent specced phone that wasn't complete garbage, that had support for Android and where things like camera/bluetooth/etc all worked, and that such a device that had some degree of support. This ticks all my boxes.

Well if this Sony devices are the new developer devices. I don't think that Sony is offering the devices but Jolla. So that would probably mean, that you can buy Sony devices with preinstalled Sailfish over the Jolla store...

And if so, I will definitely buy one

I believed if one of these big companies like lg sony samsung etc started to support SFOS officially it would play big role for that company in the future.
Now when sony started this i say that this company will get much bigger. Sfos has so much potential big company like sony can use all of it. At last we, my friends will get the best smartphones in the world!!! Sony will be next Nokia because of this choice i say to you.

Finnally official Sailfish-devices with non-crappy-build-quality?

Finally a high device! THNKS JOLLA.

oh
my
gosh...

Meanwhile, nobody posted the price for Inoi, if I am not mistaken. Well, snapdragon 210, 2Gb ram, 16 Gb... for $200! Just are you serious?

So, I guess, waiting for Sony? Maybe...

Video! Camera app has seen some love in new coming release.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/jolla-mwc-2017/