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HANOVER, GERMANY -- Creative Labs will make a personal media player that runs Microsoft's forthcoming Media2Go software, Microsoft said Wednesday.

The Singapore-based hardware company is the fifth device partner for Media2Go. Samsung Electronics, Sanyo, ViewSonic, and iRiver were announced as partners earlier this year at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where Microsoft announced the software.

Media2Go is the code name for Windows CE 4.2-based software for devices that can play video and music and display still images. Prototypes of devices Microsoft is displaying at the CeBIT trade show here have a 4-inch screen, 20GB hard drive, and IEEE-1394 ports to connect to a PC.

Hardware Help

Microsoft is working with Intel on a reference design for the devices. The design includes Intel's XScale processor, also popular in PDAs. The first devices should be out in the U.S. by the end of the year and will cost from $350 up, Microsoft said.

Specifications for Media2Go devices are subject to change as the software is still in beta and the reference design is not yet done, said Megan Kidd, product manager for Microsoft's Embedded & Appliance Platforms Group, in an interview here.

The final version of the software and the design should be done by midyear, she said.

Digital Devices

Although Media2Go devices are now envisioned to be just digital media players, they could come to rival portable DVD players, PDAs, or storage-cum-music-playing gadgets such as Apple Computer's iPod, Kidd said.

Device makers get a lot of freedom and may include a DVD drive, a touch screen, and personal information manager software, and extra-large hard drives, she said.

"You are seeing devices starting to converge and the personal media player is just a first step," Kidd said.

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