With the Mobile World Congress conference (MWC) around the corner, rumors of Microsoft designing their own smartphone have returned. These rumors have varied from just another smartphone to something more like a part Zune-part smartphone creation and answer to Apple's iPhone. In the face of all these rumors, Microsoft continues to deny that it is working on any such device. Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet is now claiming that her sources say that Microsoft is not working on a smartphone, but rather designing a Zune-branded smartphone chassis upon which other manufacturers will design their actual smartphones that will run Windows Mobile 7.

A business model for mobile like this would mirror Microsoft's approach to desktop computing in designing a structure for what criteria a device must have in order to run Microsoft Windows, but leaving the actual design and manufacture of those devices to other manufacturers. Offering such a structure for a Zune-based smartphone may be an attempt to find some sort of middle ground between the fully closed and tightly controlled design of the iPhone and the openness of Google's Android platform. If we do see the arrival of such a chassis and basis for smartphones at MWC 2009, most likely we'll also see a few early partner phones emerging, so stay tuned.

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