A cordless phone…with Windows Messenger. Bloomberg Boot Camp, a report on today's technology. It's a new hybrid phone being made by Uniden….in partnership with Microsoft. Uniden America President Rich Tosi….

"It's actually what we call a dual mode phone. It'll work just as a 5.8 digital spectrum cordless telephone just like our regular cordless telephones do today. But in the back of the base, in addition to having your regular phone jack to your telephone line, it will also have a USB port that will plug into the back of your computer, and using the MSN Windows Live Messenger service, to do instant messaging and email, you can also now, in addition, talk to the person online at the same time via your computer for free." So it's like a voice over IP call in a sense… "It is, exactly, it's an Internet telephone call. It doesn't require any subscription, there's no cost …no subscription service cost. It's just using .. just think of it as instant messaging with your voice in addition to text."

Uniden says the Win 1200 phone will go on sale this spring for about a hundred dollars. The idea is the base unit stays plugged into both a phone line and to a PC….and you can walk around the house with the handset….see the online status of your friends…and talk to them via the Internet with the push of a button. One drawback…this first version of the phone will only work with a single handset. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.