Mobile phones to kill off the desktop PC?

A growing number of people have multiple mobile phones but that's actually a failure, not a success of the industry, according to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

Speaking during a keynote speech at the CTIA Fall 2007 trade show in San Francisco, Ballmer said people are finding they need one phone for work and another for home, or one phone for email and another for making phone calls. "That strikes me as incredibly odd," he said.

The goal of the industry - and of Microsoft - should be to create devices that work for both home and work and are capable of handling business applications, unified messaging and gaming, said Ballmer.

He said: "In a sense we have to think about the phone as almost a universal remote control for your life."

Ballmer even conceded that the phone is taking on a more central role than the computer for many people. "The phone has a unique role," he said. "While the PC is the most powerful device, the phone is most popular device."

In a world of software services that run over a variety of devices, it is the phone that any individual is most likely to have at any given time, he said. And in some cases, the phone will be the computer.

Ballmer said: "In many countries the phone will be the PC for people that have very little money," pointing to a scenario in which the phone plugs into a docking station and connects up to a keyboard and television to act as a PC-like device, something Microsoft has been developing in its labs and hopes to start testing over the next 12 months.

He also noted Microsoft is not planning to bid in the upcoming US wireless spectrum auction as some of its rivals are said to be planning to do. "What would it buy us to own a piece of spectrum," he said. "It would probably do a lot to alienate the telecom industry."

Ina Fried writes for CNET News.com