Hasta La Gadget!

I wasn’t going to write about this today, but I sort of have to. Gizmodo is reporting today that the “Zune Phone” … no wait, there is no Zune Phone.

Everyone is pretty secure saying that Windows Mobile 7 will debut at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona in about two weeks. This isn’t inside knowledge; Microsoft executives have been dropping broad hints in public conference calls. We’ll be there, of course. 

But using Zune as a component service in their new OS doesn’t make Windows Mobile 7 a “Zune phone” any more than it is anticipated to be an “XBox phone” or a “Windows Live phone” or, for that matter, an “Exchange phone.” (And no, there’s no inside knowledge there either, except for common sense.)

Here’s what Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said in 2007:

“It’s not a concept you’ll ever get from us. We’re in the Windows Mobile business. We can put Zune into Windows Mobile, we can put Xbox into Windows Mobile. We can pour everything in.”

And here’s what Microsoft’s John Starkweather said in 2009:

“Microsoft is not building a Zune-specific phone.”