Amazon making Windows Phone?–If so, it will be Amazing…

Yesterday we read the news from Citi Group’s Taipei-based Kevin Chang, who is Citi’s hardware research analyst said Amazon was in making of smartphone made jointly by Foxconn Technologies and it would be released during the holiday period of 2012, a year from now.

Now Forbes.com states "Channel checks suggest the Amazon smartphone will have a 4-inch touch panel display, an 8 mega pixel camera, and adopt a Microsoft operating system. The phone will probably run on a Texas Instruments OMAP4 processor and Qualcomm’s dual mode 6-series standalone baseband."

That is interesting because given the fact that Amazon with its Kindle Fire and other Kindle line has been heavily investing in Android and Linux, I see Amazon adopting competing product Windows Phone 7 to power its rumored Smartphone as pretty interesting. Of course Amazon is friends and competitor with Microsoft in many areas including Cloud Services and other.

If Amazon releases Windows Phone 7, would it still support Microsoft Azure, given the fact that Amazon EC3 is direct competitor, like Sony’s PS is direct competitor to XBL and which is tightly integrated into the platform. Amazon also rivals Microsoft in content platform ala Amazon Content Vs. Zune, Of course Amazon could negotiate with Microsoft and make sure that its EC3 is supported and I think Microsoft would happily make it available because it will have another channel to sell its products. I have few questions and main questions are

i. Would Amazon start developing apps for WP7 aggressively, and make Amazon branded marketplace available like other OEMs do?

ii. What would happen to Amazon’s EC3 and its cloud services? Would Microsoft and Amazon reach to an understanding to support both, one of them or what would happen there?

iii. Would Amazon support both Android (its forked version) and continue to support WP7 and probably Windows 8 tablets in future? I don’t see an issue there because other OEMs like Samsung, HTC, Dell , Acer, Lenovo etc., are already supporting both Windows Phone and Android and most of them already said they would release Windows 8 tablet in a heartbeat and currently they are offering Android tablets of various flavors.

iv. Would Microsoft allow Amazon to add its music and video services along with Zune Services or not?

v. Would Microsoft give the same access to Amazon that it is currently giving Nokia?

I think we will know more about this during CES 2012 days or Mobile World Congress 2012. Stay tuned, the story is becoming interesting.

Sources via thevarguy, Forbes.com