PMP Today

The Zune phone seemed like a far-fetched idea now after Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer answered the Zune Phone question of USA Today correspondent David Lieberman at the USA Today CEO Forum on the University of Washington:

Steve Ballmer:

“It’s not a concept you’ll ever get from us. We’re in the Windows Mobile business. We can put Zune into Windows Mobile, we can put Xbox into Windows Mobile. We can pour everything in. We wouldn’t define our phone experience just by music. A phone is really a general-purpose device. You want it to make telephone calls. You want to get and receive messages — text, e-mail, whatever your preference is. You may want music, you may want to play games, you may want to carry your contacts with you, and you may want to pay for things. I think we have to think about the phone instead of as a fixed-function device, a phone is really kind of a general purpose device that we need to have clean and easy to use.”

So Windows Mobile is Microsoft’s main business in the wireless market, not Zune, not the Zune phone.

My opinion? It’s the best statement from Microsoft in recent memory.