Verizon Signals Windows Phone Push

Is there a new Windows Phone handset headed to Verizon? Certainly sounds like it.

During Verizon’s first-quarter earnings call Thursday, CFO Fran Shammo voiced the carrier’s support for Microsoft’s mobile OS, saying it’s “hoping to do the same thing” with Windows Phone that it did with Android.

“It is important that there is a third ecosystem brought into the mix here,” Shammo said. “We are fully supportive of that with Microsoft. … We helped create the Android platform from the beginning and it is an incredible platform today, and we are looking to do the same thing with a third ecosystem.”

Which is interesting to hear, because that certainly doesn’t appear to have been Verizon’s intent to date. Currently, the carrier has only one Windows Phone in its portfolio — the HTC Trophy, and it’s an older model. So for Shammo to suddenly announce that it’s going to back Windows Phone the way it backed Android suggests Verizon has finally dispensed with the wait-and-see approach it had taken with the platform.

The question now: What Windows Phone devices will the carrier add to its portfolio? Shammo didn’t say, but there’s at least one easy guess: One of Nokia’s Lumia devices.