Sendo to launch non-Microsoft phone

Sendo plans to launch in the fourth quarter a smart phone with software from Nokia instead of technology supplied by its former partner Microsoft, which the U.K. maker of customized mobile phones is suing for allegedly stealing technology.

The Birmingham, England, manufacturer will introduce a new smart phone based on Nokia’s Series 60 software, an application-rich technology optimized to run on the mobile phone operating system of Symbian, Sendo spokeswoman Marleen van LookerenCampagne said Friday.

The company can make different types of phones now that it isn’t bound to Microsoft, Van LookerenCampagne said.

Sendo, which relies largely on minority-stake holder CCT Telecom Holdings of China to manufacture its phones, designs and sells unbranded mobile phones to operators such as KPN Mobile and Vodafone Group, according to the spokeswoman.

In 1999 the British company partnered with Microsoft to develop phones running Microsoft’s Windows Powered Smartphone software. The software company invested about $12 million in Sendo, giving it a less than 5 percent share in the company.

In November, Sendo dropped Microsoft for Nokia after U.K. mobile phone operator Orange launched a smart phone based on Microsoft’s software but made by Taiwan’s High Tech Computer (HTC).

In December Sendo sued Microsoft, charging that the software maker had a secret plan to plunder the U.K. phone maker and obtain technology necessary to enter and ultimately dominate the market created by the convergence of mobile phones and computers. Then, in January, Sendo signed an agreement to license Symbian’s operating system.

Microsoft filed a countersuit against Sendo in February, charging that Sendo “diverted human and financial resources from its work on the Microsoft Smartphone to design and develop a rival Smartphone, the Nokia Series 60.”