Tomorrow, Microsoft is expected to announce a deal with Motorola — the world's second-largest handset maker, after Nokia — to create a new mobile device powered by Windows OS. The phone will be Microsoft's first-ever made in partnership with a major handset manufacturer.
The new glossy black clamshell-shaped phone, called the MPx200, will go on sale in Britain in October through Orange for a retail price of £239 ($383). It will be introduced in the United States through AT&T Wireless and in Asia through various Hong Kong-based distributors during the fourth quarter. The price has not been announced. The phone is aimed at executives on the go and is designed to make it easy to use e-mail messaging and synchronize the phone with a computer, the companies said.
Executives said the model was the first of a new line of Motorola phones to be based on Microsoft's software, although Motorola will continue to make phones based on other operating systems, like Linux and those developed by Symbian, Microsoft's main competitor in the market for operating systems for high-end phones. Symbian, based in London, is a software licensing consortium owned by companies including Nokia; Psion, a maker of hand-held devices; the cellphone makers Samsung, Siemens and Sony Ericsson, as well as Matsushita Electric Industrial, the maker of the Panasonic brand.
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