Microsoft Rumored to Prep a Tegra-Based Smartphone

As we reported a few times before, Microsoft is expected to show up at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona with the latest release of its mobile platform, the Windows Mobile 6.5. In addition to that, the latest rumors on the web say, the Redmond software company is also said to unveil a handset that would bear its name.

According to the voices over the Internet, the software giant might prepare the release of a Microsoft-branded smartphone that would be built around Nvidia’s Tegra computer-on-a-chip. The website Gigaom says that a chip analyst with research firm Broadpoint AmTech, Doug Freedman, has written that the chipset might be included in a future Microsoft smartphone.

“We have been able to identify NVDA’s second handset design win for the Tegra Applications Processor (our Jan. 12th note identified HTC). We believe that Tegra is also designed into an upcoming Microsoft smartphone (with a Qualcomm baseband solution). We believe that MSFT may announce one of the new phones at 3GSM,” Gigaom reports Freedman to have written.

According to the article, Freedman also stated that the company planned support not only for the Windows operating systems, but also for either RIM or Apple. “Should we have to pick between the two we would favor AAPL support as a building block of Tegra is from PortalPlayer, a past supplier to AAPL iPod products,” Freedman is reported to have said.

Nvidia's CEO Jen-Hsun Huang has been reported to have said that the company would try to sell Tegra to Apple, so that won't come too much as a surprise. On the other hand, it is rather unlikely for the Redmond company to develop a Microsoft-branded smartphone and break away from the tradition of supplying software to hardware manufacturers that integrate the platforms with their own hardware products.