Microsoft is not creating its own smartphone to compete directly with rival Apple's iPhone. The company will instead focus on licensing its Windows Mobile operating systems, said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, adding that Microsoft does not plan to change its overall mobile strategy by creating proprietary hardware.

"The consumer market mojo is with Apple and to a lesser extent with [Research In Motion's] BlackBerry," Ballmer said Tuesday while speaking to financial analysts in New York. "It is not our strategy to build our own phone," Ballmer said. "It's our strategy to build software that can stretch across many devices."

Microsoft plans on bringing its operating system, which was recently renamed "Windows Phones" at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, to both lower-end phones and smartphones. In that respect, Ballmer said, Google's Android operating system will be its competitor.

Microsoft unveiled its Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system last week in Barcelona, and has indicated that WinMo 7.0 will appear sometime in 2010. It also launched its own mobile application store at the show.

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