Race For The Music-Playing Phone

Apple, creator or portable music player dominant the iPod, has begun training to defeat both Nokia and Microsoft in the race for music-playing phone supremacy.

iPod has yet to receive any viable contenders to challenge them in the MP3 player market, even with Microsoft's release of it's own Apple Computer's CEO Steve Jobs has placed an order to Taiwanese manufacturer Hon Hai Precision for 12 million iPhones, according to analyst citing reports in Asia. Reports say the iPhone could possibly be released after the MacWorld conference in January 2007. The iPhone would have the capabilities of an iPod and would also include a 15, 000 song MP3 player, email, and 80 hours of video all in a cellular telephone. If all goes to plan, CEO of Apple Steve Jobs will be announcing their release very soon, according to UBS analyst Benjamin Reitzes who wrote: "This data point is in line with our expectations that a cell phone could be discussed in January at Macworld with limited sales by February and broader distribution in spring 2007," in a research note. Competitor Microsoft only released it's Zune portable music player on Tuesday, but they have already announced that they intend to make a cellular phone version of Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Furl Autmn Davis is a staff writer for Murdok covering ebusiness and technology.