After taking over Sony Ericsson, Sony continued on the same road the mobile phone maker was on, and it released new Android-based Xperia devices at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

For the past few years, the handset vendor has been releasing only Android devices in the Xperia line, but it appears that this might change soon.

Rumor has it that Sony is considering the release of a Windows Phone 8-powered smartphone, and that it might launch it before the end of this year.

This is not the first time that Sony is rumored to plan the release of Windows Phone devices, nor is it the first time we learn that it might load the Windows Phone 8 (codenamed Apollo) platform on them.

Previously, Sony Ericsson said that it considered the Windows Phone platform unable to deliver, and that it decided to wait before launching handsets running under it.

The company’s Xperia lineup, however, did kick off with Windows phones. The first of them was the Xperia X1, based on Windows Mobile 6, while the second - and the last of them – was Xperia X2, announced in September 2009 and powered by Windows Mobile 6.5.

No other Windows Phone handset from Sony has been unveiled since then, but rumors on possible plans on the matter did emerge a few times before.

Sony Ericsson did say that it would reconsider its position towards Windows Phone if it believed that the platform was capable of competing with Android and iOS.

At the moment, the OS is still trailing those mobile platforms, but the new features and enhancements that Microsoft has been packing it with lately should help it prove itself soon.

Windows Phone 8, which will be tightly related to the Windows 8 platform for desktops, might mark the platform’s turning point that everyone is expecting, and Sony appears set to seize the opportunity.