Zune Manager Slams Zune Phone Rumors

Brian Seitz, Group Manager of Zune, got in touch with Gizmodo's Brian Lam and told him "there's no Zune phone at CES."

This contradicts a lot of what we've been hearing for months about a possible Zune phone, but not everything.

Two days ago, we noted that Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry claimed that Microsoft would release a Zune phone and would physically resemble the hardware design of Danger's Sidekick.

A couple of months back, CNBC reported that MS was working on a phone code-named "Pink," which was the strongest evidence yet that an iPhone-rival was in the works. But according to Microsoft (and Lam), the Microsoft Pink project is more "a platform of services that could allow Zune like services to run on platforms like Windows Mobile."

This would jive with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's assertion that they were working with hardware vendors to bring about more 'complete experiences' to the phone market (still, Ballmer's original answer was vague at best). At any rate, the Zune-like software/services would give hardware makers the opportunity to ramp up the multimedia capabilities of their phones without worrying about competing against an Alpha Zune phone.

It also means that Microsoft could still have some prototypes of Pink-infused phones to announce at CES as they roll out a Pink strategy that affects their immediate future in mobile.

But like we mentioned before, the numbers facing the Redmond giant in this space don't lie. Apple is in full stride and piling up the money, and the Pink 'Zune in every phone' idea needs to be fully realized, and perhaps more importantly, individually dynamic for each phone-maker, to make it stand above the crowd in a competitive arena.

While the company's history of denials makes us wary to fully accept the no-Zune phone slam, the Pink project would be a step forward for the company and for phone users everywhere.

By Jose Fermoso for Wired.com