Good News: HTC to launch great new phone. Bad News: Windows Mobile not included

According to a senior executive of Telstra, HTC is going to launch a new touch phone that will be a direct competitor to iPhone and the newly released Palm Pre. In fact, Telstra’s executive after reviewing the Palm Pre at CES, said that the expected HTC phone is “better and more functional”.

Quoting the source (smarthouse.com) of this story:

The new touch phone has been developed using a combination of the Google Android operating system and Linux based software written by HTC. The screen is believed to be bigger than current offerings from HTC.

Executives from Telstra who had met with Palm at the CES Show in Las Vegas to review their new Pre offering said that the new phone from HTC was “better and more functional” they said.

“We have seen both and we believe that the new HTC phone will be a real competitor to the iPhone and the Pre which at this stage looks nice but is still not delivered to market”.

HTC executives who are at the show but not exhibiting have refused to comment on their new phone which is expected in the second quarter of 2009.

I honestly don’t know what to make out of this story. Should we expect just a Touch HD loaded with Android or something completely new? Is HTC keeping under wraps a similar Windows Mobile device? Could HTC’s flagship device for 2009, be using Android instead of Windows Mobile?

Hopefully all  this questions (and many more) will be answered at Mobile World Congress 2009 in Barcelona next month.  For now though, you can tell us your thoughts using a comment.