Microsoft; no phone hardware, no Zune phone, lustworthy 6.5 devices

There have been rumors in the past that a Zune phone was coming and that Microsoft was going to start making their own mobile phones to compete with Apple and the iPhone. We here always knew that was not going to happen and John Starkweather from Microsoft just gave us the go ahead to publicly share a few points about these issues as stated below:

1. Microsoft is not going into the phone hardware business
2. Microsoft is not building a Zune-specific phone
3. We're deepening our relationships with our hardware partners in order to create even better performing phones that are competitively priced, have the features people want, that are easy-to-use and just downright lustworthy. The upcoming availability of Windows Mobile 6.5 software will enable our OEM partners to build even more compelling devices in a wide-range of form factors for customers around the world.

Windows Mobile relies upon their OEM partners, much like they do with their Windows PC operating system, and this strategy is not going to change anytime soon. While this is a difficult way to manage updates and be nimble like Apple and the iPhone, it does give users a very broad choice in form factor, supported carriers, and price they want to pay for a device.