Zune phone rumours will not go away

THE DARK SATANIC rumour mill is refusing to stop churning out whispers that Microsoft is about to release a Zune phone.

Initially the buzz was that the shy and retiring Steve "there is a kind of hush" Ballmer was going to announce it at the CES show. Then Steve mimed that he was only going to talk about Windows 7.

Now the claims are that Vole is planning a mobile phone and the Zune team is involved in giving it an interface.

CNet's Matt Hickey, who claims he hangs out with Zune developers at parties, said that it is not likely to be called anything to do with Zune, although it might have some Zune functions.

Anyway, one of his Zune chums said that he had been chatting to members of the Windows Mobile group.

Hickey said that the some members of the Zune UI team are going to be moving to the Windows Mobile group to do the work.

Word on the street is that Vole does want to do something to hit the Iphone and the current batch of Windows Mobile interfaces are not going to manage to come close. It seems that Ballmer liked the interface that the Zune team came up with and wants some of that for Windows Mobile. And why not build a phone to go with it?

Hickey reasons that Vole has some sterling work on the Surface interface and if it could jack some of the object awareness and scanning technology into a handset it could even eclipse Apple. [In the same way the Zune eclipsed the Ipod? Yeah right! – Sub Ed]

All of this speculation stuff is based on "fat bloke down the pub said" rumours, but it is getting close to Christmas µ

L'Inq
CNet