If we believe ‘insiders’ cited in virtually every technology blog this week, next year we will see an iPhone-like smartphone from Microsoft, based on the Nvidia Tegra chipset and geared to advanced multimedia.
The idea that Microsoft would create its own smartphone has been around for years, and usually focuses on a ‘Zune phone’ that would put mobile connectivity into its music and video player, taking on the iPhone/iTunes and the Sony Ericsson Walkman combinations. And of course, Nokia’s XpressMusic/Comes With Music offering has lit a new fire under market for music optimized phones with integrated download services. However, Zune could be too lightweight a platform to compete in the smartphone market, and Microsoft may now be considering a multifunction offering with fully fledged Windows Mobile.
However, the latest rumors surround a Microsoft phone that seems more heavily geared to video than previous prototypes, and could debut at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February. Insiders say it will use the Nvidia Tegra 650 chipset, which incorporates an ARM processor (further distancing Microsoft from its former alter ego Intel, with its rival x86 architecture). The 650, unveiled earlier this year as the graphics processor specialist’s attack on the smartphone sector, also includes processors for high definition video, audio and imaging, plus an ultra-low power GeForce graphics processing unit.
Although Nvidia initially relied on smartphone vendors adopting separate apps processors, like Texas Instruments’ OMAP, it is packing more and more into a single-chip architecture now, which will make it more competitive with the king of single-chip designs, Qualcomm, whose Snapdragon is the key challenger in the mobile internet device space to Intel’s Atom (still a two-chip solution). Indeed, if the Microsoft launch materializes, it would be a major credibility boost for Nvidia, especially as Snapdragon would have been another logical option for the Windows giant, which has been collaborating closely with Qualcomm in recent years.
Several key questions remain around any Microsoft phone launch. Will it run the classic Windows Mobile interface, which is losing ground against alternatives like Series 60 and iPhone, to the extent that many Windows handsets like Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X1 disguise the UI heavily? The likelihood is that Microsoft would take the opportunity of a new platform to address the weaknesses of Windows and create something that would be different from the systems of the Windows Mobile licensees, and take advantage of Nvidia’s capabilities. Nvidia has already demonstrated Windows Mobile prototypes using GeForce, and their interfaces are significantly different to any seen before, with features like finger-flick-and-roll screens and accelerometer-based reorienting 720p video.
Nvidia says GeForce will enable a Windows Mobile device that will run 720p HDTV video for 10 hours, and has demonstrated a Tegra device plugged into a large screen TV, via HDMI connections, with no visible resolution differences from a larger HDTV box or PC, according to many reviewers.
This leads on to the question of how Microsoft will position its potential platform against Windows phones from other vendors, just as the operating system is starting to gain more supporters among the major manufacturers? Perhaps the answer is to leave current Windows Mobile devices in their stronghold of mobile enterprise users, and create a new platform geared to multimedia content. This could, in turn, be licensed to third parties, as with some previous Microsoft hardware efforts like its Wi-Fi devices.
Logically, such a new system would contain integrated web services and content, and the planned MS application store, as seen on early Android products. Microsoft may hope to gain a larger place in the mobile value chain by controlling its own platform rather than merely licensing Windows Mobile to handset makers, and if so, it is taking a leaf out of Google’s book, driving web services revenues via own-branded devices.