By Tony Smith
23rd March 2006 13:19 GMTAnalysis Taiwan's BenQ believes Apple will indeed offer a mobile phone product. One company executive this week said the 'iPhone' is "definitely coming", claiming the iPod maker has been talking to Taiwanese component manufacturers, some of whom also supply BenQ's handset operation.
The BenQ staffer's comment comes courtesy of Australian website Smarthouse. He said: "Among manufacturers in Taiwan [Apple's plan] is common knowledge. The issue for many is the availability of parts if the phone takes off."
He said BenQ was not in the running as a potential Apple partner: the two companies would be in competition, as they already are in the digital music player arena.
Telephony is an obvious direction for Apple's iPod enterprise, especially as storage - be it Flash or hard disk - gets cheaper and easier to integrate into a device that almost everyone already carries around.
Apple already has a relationship with Motorola, but it didn't get off to a good start - Motorola's Rokr was criticised for its lacklustre design and the 100-song limit its version of iTunes imposes. Motorola has since said it is planning a line of music phones based on Microsoft's Windows Media Player, which could be seen as a reaction to Apple's plan to enter the market.
Apple has also had, in the past, a good relationship with Sony Ericsson, particularly when it was promoting Mac OS X's data-synchronisation technology. These days, Sony Ericsson is out to win market share from the iPod using its Walkman-branded phones. The strength of the brand and the success Sony Ericsson appears to be gaining through it may also have persuaded Apple it's time to tackle its rival head-on.