Microsoft's smartphone strategy emphasises Microsoft's own brand and that of network operator, treating the handset hardware as a commodity -- much as in the PC market. As such it has been less attractive to large, well-known mobile phone makers, which prefer to keep the software's brand in the background. Smartphone 2002 licensees have thus tended to be commodity hardware makers who are less interested in pushing their own brands. Orange's handset, for example, is made by Taiwan's High-Tech Computing (HTC), which also manufactures the xda smartphone sold by O2 in the UK and T-Mobile in the US. HTC also manufactures devices for handheld computer makers such as Hewlett-Packard. Samsung has licensed Smartphone 2002, the only well-known handset maker to do so, but is also planning a Symbian-based device. In the US, AT&T Wireless has agreed to produce a phone using the Smartphone 2002 operating system -- possibly in mid-2003. Microsoft also makes Pocket PC Phone Edition, a version of its Windows CE software for handheld computers that include mobile phone functions, such as Hewlett-Packard's Jornada 928. PDA/phone combinations have begun to catch on. Vendors include handheld computer makers such as Palm, Handspring and HP, as well as mobile phone makers such as Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Kyocera. Nokia has recently found success with the 7650 camera-phone, its first mass-market Symbian OS device. Sales of the 7650 helped to drive Symbian to the No. 1 spot in the European handheld device market for the third quarter, above the Palm OS and Windows CE.
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