We should’ve expected to see this happening at some point, but perhaps not quite so soon. The Sony Ericsson logo has been taken from from the front of the company’s HQ in London, ahead of a deal that’s expected to see the ‘Ericsson’ portion of the name dropped altogether.

Spotted earlier this morning by Ben Wood of CCS Insight, the old logo has been taken down, leaving a pale, sun-bleached mark on the stone behind.

It’s not clear whether or not this is to be replaced by a brand new Sony Ericsson sign or one that simply reads ‘Sony’; when we spoke to Sony Ericsson on the matter just now it declined to comment.

The proposed buyout of Sony Ericsson by Sony is expected to go ahead in January pending regulatory approval. This is either a sign that Sony is confident the move will go ahead or maybe it’s just that the builders want to get that out of the way before the weather cranks it up a notch – in case you haven’t noticed, it’s snowing today. Snow is serious business in the UK; we British are simply powerless against it.

Even though things like this are inevitable, given Sony’s future plans, there’s something vaguely sad about seeing this. Still, there’s one way to cheer us up; that Ice Cream Sandwich alpha build running on an Xperia Arc S.

Source: Ben Woods via Slashgear