Sendo
Z100

The Z100 is a hugely significant device as it was poised to be the first commercial product to use Microsoft’s Mobile operating system codenamed Stinger. Sendo was the first company to adopt Microsoft’s mobile software platform and contributed significantly to the development and performance/reliability of the software. While planning the device, Sendo planned for the device to be “the smallest and lightest GSM smartphone with the most built-in functionality” and a “credible replacement for both a high-tier phone or a Palm, Psion or Windows CE PDA.” While Sendo was planning the Z100 in 2001, benchmark competitive products included the Ericsson R380, the Motorola MAP phone and the Mitsubishi Trium Mondo. The preliminary sales goal in the first year of availability was one million units. However, continual delays in the final release of the software from Microsoft and with allegations from Sendo that Microsoft had misappropriated Sendo’s intellectual property and given it to the Taiwanese company HTC (who had also become a licensee of Microsoft’s software), Sendo ended up cutting ties with Microsoft in November 2002 and cancelling the Z100 product. A lawsuit between Sendo and Microsoft started in 2003 with Sendo claiming “Microsoft set about through a secret plan to obtain that technology and know-how from Sendo with the false promises that Microsoft would co-develop, help finance, and be the “go to market” partner for Sendo’s 2.5G Smartphone, the Z100.”. It went on to claim that Microsoft’s plan was “to plunder the small company of its proprietary information, technical expertise, market knowledge, customers, and prospective customers.” As outlined above, Sendo claimed that “Microsoft gained access to Sendo’s hardware expertise and knowledge of the mobile carrier business. Microsoft then provided Sendo’s proprietary hardware expertise and trade secrets to low cost original equipment manufacturers (OEM) (who would not otherwise have had the expertise) to manufacture handsets that would use Stinger and used Sendo’s carrier-customer relationships to establish its own contractual relationships.” Sendo concluded that “Microsoft used Sendo’s knowledge and expertise to its benefit to gain direct entry into the burgeoning next generation mobile phone market and then, after driving Sendo to the brink of bankruptcy, cut it out of the picture.” Microsoft responded to Sendo’s original complaint comprehensively denying these allegations and claiming that Sendo had made “fanciful and unfounded allegations of a supposed Microsoft "Secret Plan" to harm Sendo” and that “the failure of the Microsoft/Sendo Z100 Smartphone project [was] due solely to Sendo's many and various breaches (and ultimate wrongful termination) of the Strategic Development and Marketing Agreement (SDMA) and other agreements, as well as Sendo's fraudulent course of conduct in repeatedly misleading Microsoft as to Sendo's financial situation, Sendo's progress in designing and developing the Z100, and Sendo's commitment to that project.” The lawsuit was eventually settled in September 2004 with both Sendo and Microsoft denying any and all liability. As part of this agreement, all Z100 devices were ordered to be destroyed. It is believed that approximately 140 units of the Z100 smartphone were manufactured. Sendo destroyed many of the units in its possession as did Microsoft however there are still a few units in existence. On this basis, the phone is a rare gem in the Mobile Phone Museum collection. A document attached to this entry provides the product description for the Z100 that was written by the product team at Sendo in May 2000 - nearly two years before the product was formally announced. There is also a presentation attached that outlines the services and experiences using the Microsoft Stinger operating system.  * The references to the legal case were taken from Sendo’s filed complaint to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas Texarkana Division and Microsoft’s defendants’ answer and counterclaim to the same court.