Sendo
Z100

The Z100 was a very small and light phone weighing only 99 grams. It was a triband GSM, GPRS device and included a full HTML web browser based on Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. It had a 65K colour TFT display, and the ability to download and side-load third-party apps via GPRS or using the full-size MMC hot-swappable memory card slot built into the phone. Various accessories were designed including a clip-on VGA camera, that came included in the sales package. The Z100 used 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 the performance/reliability of the software. 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 was settled in September 2004 and as part of this agreement, all Z100 devices were ordered to be destroyed. On this basis, the phone is a rare gem in the Mobile Phone Museum collection.