Rumours of Microsoft Mobile Phone Reappear

A research note has renewed suspicions that Microsoft could be working on an own-branded mobile phone to shore up support for its Windows Mobile platform in the face of competition from other smartphone operating systems.

Canaccord Adams analyst Peter Misek said in a research note that, "There is a high likelihood that Microsoft is slated to enter the branded smart phone market in 2009 by unveiling its first device at the Mobile World Congress." This gives the company a deadline of next Februrary to finish off work on the proposed phone.

Microsoft had been expected to launch a phone version of its iPod competitor, the Zune music player - but regularly denied the reports had any credence.

The research note also predicted that the device or phone would be based on Nvidia's Tegra chipset with sales of between 5-10 million in the first year. Nvidia has said that its Tegra chips are aimed at Windows Mobile handset developers. Tegra is a heterogeneous processor architecture with multiple processors, each architected for a specific class of tasks - an 800 MHz ARM CPU, a HD video processor, an imaging processor, an audio processor, and a low power GeForce GPU.

Microsoft has repeatedly stated that it has no plans to launch an own-branded phone. Scott Rockfeld, Microsoft's director of Windows Mobile confirmed again in a statement that the company has no plans to make a mobile phone.

However, competition from competing operating systems has intensified recently, particularly with the decision by Nokia to buy out the Symbian shareholders and release the OS as an open-source platform. Three of the five main smartphone platforms, Linux, Symbian, Android are all now open-source, while Microsoft's Windows and Apples's iPhone platform are still proprietary.

Despite Microsoft's denials, fueling the rumours was the purchase of Danger, a smartphone manufacturer in April this year. Danger is now a part of Microsoft's new Premium Mobile Experiences (PMX) team, a group within the Mobile Communications Business (MCB) of the Entertainment and Devices Division at Microsoft.

Posted to the site on 26th November 2008