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Microsoft has announced that Vodafone will be the first mobile carrier to standardise on Windows Mobile smartphones, but that the software giant was working with other operators on similar deals.

'Vodafone is the first to go into this direction, but there are others doing similar things and we will be talking about them in due course,' Pieter Knook, senior vice president for the Mobile and Embedded Devices Division at Microsoft, said in a telephone interview.

Microsoft Windows Mobile was one of just three core software platforms selected by Vodafone for future consumer handsets, in an attempt to cut costs in offering services to subscribers. The other two are Linux and Symbian Series 60.

Knook also said he saw no reason why the exponential sales growth of phones running Windows Mobile would not continue beyond the company's fiscal 2007 which closes end-June 2007.

'We've said we expect to double sales of Windows Mobile handsets this year. We're still relatively small. I see no reason why that momentum cannot continue beyond 2007,' he said.

The number of phones sold running Microsoft Windows Mobile was around 6 million in 2005.