Now before you get excited/start vomiting, this is just a concept of what a Windows Mobile based Yahoo!fone might look like; the really interesting part is the idea of a collaboration between the two companies based not on Microsoft buying Yahoo! but the search and content company working with Seattle to rival Google’s Android.  ZDNet’s Jason Perlow is surprisingly keen on a low-cost smartphone – as he puts it, a Y!Phone – that had Zune media functionality together with WiFi, Yahoo! integration (such as with Flickr and Yahoo! News), camera and of course HSDPA.  His argument is that the Y!Phone could dramatically undercut the cost of an iPhone while updating the staid Windows Mobile GUI with some Zune menu attractiveness.

Concept by Brandon Perlow

“An excellent industrial design and attractive user interface, plus Zune’s player capabilities might make prospective iPhone customers think twice, particularly if the device was significantly cheaper. However, with Google/Android and RIM/Blackberry both working on competing next generation devices, Microsoft needs to head the two of these off at the pass” Jason Perlow, ZDNet

However, as his article goes on, the Y!Phone becomes less an Apple alternative and more a replacement for that generic business accompaniment, the BlackBerry.  Citing RIM’s recent service outages, Perlow suggests the Yahoo!/Microsoft hybrid could position itself as a reliable, broadly compatible – and cheaper – option, harnessing Microsoft’s Exchange experience in the process.  He’s keen on a GUI developed in Silverlight with Windows Mobile’s undoubtedly powerful but undeniably boring guts lurking underneath.

Me, I’m not so sure.  After all, Microsoft have spent so long developing their own suite of online news, media and content portals, I don’t know quite where the payout for them working with Yahoo! would be.  Windows Mobile undoubtedly needs a visual refresh, and I think that will come once Microsoft wake up to the fact that previous supporters like HTC – who have before now gone to the trouble of developing GUI overlays fr the software, such as TouchFLO – are hedging their bets courtesy of Android.  My suspicion, though, is that they’ll just buy up something like Point UI instead.