Steve Ballmer Kind of Announces a Zune Phone

In a very recent memo for Microsoft employees, Steve Ballmer, expressed his thoughts and wishes for the next fiscal year. Besides mentioning how he'd like Microsoft to be able to offer a similar experience to their direct competition, he kind of announced a future Microsoft phone.

A Microsoft phone or a Zune-like phone isn't something new. People have been suspecting Microsoft to develop a phone out of Zune before but Microsoft always said they weren't going to do it. Well it seems all that has changed.

Steve Ballmer said, among other things that "Today, we're changing the way we work with hardware vendors to ensure that we can provide complete experiences with absolutely no compromises. We'll do the same with phones –providing choice as we work to create great end-to-end experiences."

Does that mean we're going to see the first Windows Mobile phone created by, well, the creators of Windows themselves? When will it roll out? Is Steve Ballmer exaggerating again? What do you think?