Toshiba was once one of the top PDA vendors in the world, releasing groundbreaking Pocket PCs like the e805—the first with a VGA display. Today, it still rolls out the occasional handheld, but only in its native country of Japan.

This may soon change. Toshiba's EMEA region manager for mobile communications, Peter Ford, recently told German-language site Computerwoche.de that the Japanese electronics giant would announce its first smartphone shortly.

He said the company hadn't decided on whether to go the Symbian or Windows Mobile route for this handset yet, however. Symbian is currently the most popular smartphone platform in the world, while Microsoft’s mobile operating system is expected to become the top advanced handset platform by the end of the decade; at a time when smartphones will account for a much larger percentage of overall mobile phone shipments.

Toshiba's history with Windows Mobile and its huge notebook computer business would seem to make Windows Mobile a natural fit. Like its traditional mobile phones, expect to see Toshiba's smartphone models - whatever platform they run - to ship outside of Japan.

Ford said the company would make an official announcement about its smartphone plans at CeBIT in Hanover, Germany. CeBIT starts in a few days and runs into next week.