Zune Thoughts: Wild and Crazy Zune Phone Speculation (Again)

"Blogger Chris Lanier is now reporting that we will soon be hearing details of a "Zune integrated with a phone later this year. Some might call it a ZunePhone, but whatever you call it know that it is for real and has a dedicated team at Microsoft now creating the v1 product." Although I'm not ruling it out (Microsoft has denied product launches and then has done them anyway before), I really doubt that this is the ZunePhone device that so many have suggested is on its way."

As much as I want this to be true, I just can't see it happening - there's so much more that Microsoft needs to do to make the Zune an even better media playback device; attacking the phone aspect would just be too much, too soon. And the damage it would do to the Windows Mobile business would be massive - unless, maybe, this was positioned in such a way that it was purely an entertainment phone and didn't edge into the business side of things where Windows Mobile plays. But when the iPhone has ActiveSync and can sync with an Exchange server, how could the Zune Phone not match that type of functionality? It's all wild speculation at this point, but until I see some serious proof of a Zune Phone, I'm not going to believe a word of it. What do you think?