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What could a Microsoft phone be?  One that continues the Windows tradition: making computers easy for people to use?  Could that be consistent with their purchases?

Last year, we sat through the MS Keynote at CES and heard all about Windows Live and integration with phones, photos and imagined how great our lives would be.  Fast forward to this year and most of us still lust after the iPhone.  So what could MS be up to?

Trip Chowdry says we’ll see some kind of Zune/Danger change-o-device.  That makes me think that it will be designed to be uber popular and that worries me.  The Zune was supposed to be that way and save for the guy who keeps getting Zune tattoos, not so much.  So what could happen this time?

If the team at MS took some of the things that make the Surface table intriguing and made them mobile, it could be an interesting proposition.  MS has to know they’ve hit a chord with everyone on the fun of the Surface table.  Time to leverage things like proximity awareness - imagine your phone saying, “Hey, I sense your camera is nearby with 13 new images - how about we send those to your friends?” or identification of things (products, locales, directions) via a photo (Android does something like this).  Combine these things with an intuitive UI and we got something interesting to talk about.

We know the Danger team can make a device loved by the younger crowd, the question is can Microsoft exploit that? 

I expect to see Windows Mobile 7 previewed, though, I might have expected that last year as well.  They are falling further and further behind in the smartphone war and without something major, it could be a war they will lose.

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