Microsoft phones coming next week?

Microsoft will be launching two feature phones next week, leaving the smartphone market to its licensees in favour of a broader attack on the cellular market. The news has been rumoured for a while, and an invitation to a press conference on Monday bears out the timing, while C-Net claims inside information says Microsoft will launch two phones on Monday. Both handsets will come with sliding keypads and touch screens, but neither will have the flexibility or power of Microsoft's flagship smartphone platform.

According to C-Net both handsets will be on Verizon's CDMA network and on sale within a month, which means the rest of the world will have to wait for a GSM version. Windows Phone 7 (Microsoft dropped the "Series" moniker last week) and the other smartphones tend to get all the attention, but when it comes to volume the industry is more interested in "feature phones" which can handle an increasingly broad range of content while meeting the criteria of the majority of customers - being a mobile telephone.