More and more evidence is emerging regarding a possible relationship with manufacturing giants Motorola and Smartphone OS makers, Microsoft. In this reuters.com article Motorolas’ phones are being readied for Microsofts Smartphone OS – to then be sold to customers of our friends at Orange.
This confirms reports from modaco.com regarding the sale of a Motorola MS Smartphone, now possibly as soon as this month! Motorola is the world’s second largest handset maker after Finland’s Nokia Corp and a deal of this size is seen as a major coup for the MS Smartphone. Rumours about this have been going around the web for quite a bit now, but major broadsheet the Financial Times has now reported more. It is quoted in the Reuters article, saying “A Microsoft-powered phone by Motorola would be launched this month.” – although it did not mention the source of this info. Wait .. could this be true ? Could the SPV2 be taking our concentration away from a huge Orange shock ? A Motorola Smartphone ready to roll ? Who knows – maybe, maybe not… by Christmas there may be several MS Smartphones on Orange! If so, this would put even more pressure on other networks to do the same, which should help the MS Smartphone a huge amount, we may even see a full release in the USA! 🙂
Orange stated that it would close “deals with Microsoft to develop new Windows Mobile-based Smartphones” as well as a cell phone for business customers featuring an operating system from Palm Inc. (boooo!)
Motorola have recently hacked away at their relationship with Symbian. Symbian is now Nokia’s main toy and features in a lot of their phones. Motorola has thus decided to look towards Microsoft as a juicy alternative. With Motorola in bed with Microsoft, this could pose an even greater threat to established players like Sony Ericsson, Nokia and others.
In a new twist, Infoworld.com is now reporting that an announcement will be made regarding this on September 15th. Other news sites are also stating the same date – including pcworld.com and technewsworld.com and Network Fusion. Microsoft have said that talk about an announcement was “speculation” – however they did say that there was a briefing next week for journalists involving Microsoft partners. This did relate to an announcement to come on September 15th 2003. Ben Wood, analyst with market researcher Gartner said, “One Microsoft Smartphone is very similar to another. Motorola can add some of the refinement that has been lacking in other products when it comes to design, quality of the plastic, the keypad, etcetera.”
More details and source – here – reuters.com
Even more details at Infoworld.com and pcworld.com and technewsworld.com and Network Fusion
More info on this phone can be found here.