Motorola: WMA Music Phones This Year

Microsoft and Motorola announced on Monday that the two companies were collaborating to bring to market several handsets equipped with Windows Media technology. The new phones would be PlaysForSure compatible, allowing consumers to use them with a wide variety of music services.

Users would be able to connect their phones to a PC through a USB 2.0 cable, which would use the Media Transfer Protocol to "seamlessly" copy music from Windows Media Player to the phone.

Along with handset development, the companies also said they were working together on solutions to enable devices to download music over a 3G network. Microsoft's WMA Pro codec would be used for these services, allowing for high quality and efficient downloads, the company said.

"Combining Motorola's wireless handsets with Windows Media technologies will significantly advance the mobile music experience," Windows Media Division vice president Amir Majidimehr said. "Motorola's upcoming handsets with Windows Media will offer consumers and operators worldwide the widest range of high-fidelity, no-compromise music choices."

The enabling of WMA on Motorola devices is not exactly new, as some handsets have been capable of playing back the format since last year. However, Motorola said devices with tigher integration of Windows Media technologies would launch in the second half of the year, with over-the-air music service support in 2007.

Motorola highlighted the agreement as a way to give choice to its customers. "Our relationship with Microsoft is about making the mobile world seamless with the desktop world and allowing consumers to experience music wherever and whenever they want," Motorola marketing vice president Richard Chin said.

The new phones would mean Motorola would be producing music phones in three different types: one based on iTunes, which the company first launched in September of last year; models based on its iRadio Music Service; and now those based on Windows Media.