Rumor: Zune Mobile in the works

Given Apple’s immense success with the iPhone, many have looked in Microsoft’s direction to see if it would answer with its own device, as it answered the iPod with the Zune. Speculation was mounting for months, but no one managed to come up with any tangible evidence that Microsoft was up to something.

This past January, Bill Gates himself denied that an iPhone competitor was in the works. The decision makes sense of course; Microsoft has many Windows Mobile phones on the market already, the Zune has barely matured, and Microsoft needs to get one mobile hardware device right before it even goes to the drawing board on the next one.

Blogger Chris Lanier is now reporting that we will soon be hearing details of a “Zune integrated with a phone later this year. Some might call it a ZunePhone, but whatever you call it know that it is for real and has a dedicated team at Microsoft now creating the v1 product.” Although I’m not ruling it out (Microsoft has denied product launches and then has done them anyway before), I really doubt that this is the ZunePhone device that so many have suggested is on its way.

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