Since the multinational company acquired Danger - the manufacturer of Sidekick - a popular mass market smartphone has been targeting this segment on its own under its project Pink.
The mass market smartphone segment is one of the emerging ones in market today where the devices are capable of more functions than standard phone functions of making and receiving calls, but fall short of multitasking capabilities of some of the high-end smartphones. The mass market segment largely concentrates on meeting the networking needs of youth and other smartphone enthusiasts who are on a shoe-string budget.
Leaked images of as many as two Microsoft devices, codenamed Turtle and Pure, have surfaced on the web speculating rumors of Microsoft entering into the mass market smartphone segment. While the leaked images clearly show QWERTY slider devices, the blogosphere is strife with speculations that the devices will be run on the same software platform as the one in Microsoft's Zune HD.
Further details on specifications, pricing and availability have not been announced or leaked yet.
The latest move by Microsoft is a continuation of its effort in maintaining its firm grip in the services as well as the manufacturing segment. The Redmond-based company, which primarily started as a operating system developer, has been branching out into different segments to keep up with rival Apple's offerings. While Microsoft has the market advantage in desktop/notebook OS market, Apple has seized the initiative in portable music player segment with its iPod and in the smartphone segment with its iPhone. Although Apple has been penetrating the OS market with its variants of Mac OS X, Microsoft has been trying to gain a foothold in portable music player segment with its Zune and smartphone segment with its Windows Phone OS, and now with its mass market smartphones - Turtle and Pure.
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