Rumors that Microsoft Corporation is planning to release a smartphone have started running wild recently, one analyst having forecast that the gadget might be unveiled at the GSMA Mobile World Congress (MWC), which has been scheduled to take place in two weeks.

Moreover, Microsoft’s own smartphone is said to come fitted with Nvidia's Tegra processor and a telecommunications baseband chip from Qualcomm, Doug Freedman of Broadpoint AmTech stated in a report issued Thursday.

The speculations began last year, when Microsoft was first rumored to be preparing to launch a smartphone at the Consumer Electronics Show that was held this January in Las Vegas, yet the company did not introduce such a gadget.

Currently, word has it that the tech giant would take the wraps off a cellphone at the Mobile World Congress, which is set to be held from February 16 to 19 in Barcelona.

Microsoft is presently marketing the Zune portable media player, among other gadgets, while it has also developed the Windows Mobile operating system, which it licenses to several phone makers, yet it has not manufactured a smartphone of its own until now.

For the time being, the company refused to comment on the rumors, Scott Rockfeld, director of Windows Mobile, having said that Microsoft had nothing to announce, adding that it continued to collaborate with Nvidia on the delivery of innovative solutions aimed at pushing the smartphone industry to a higher level.

Nvidia also declined to make a statement concerning the matter, still last year at the MWC, it said that its Tegra APX 2500 mobile processor would support Windows Mobile.