Microsoft’s (NSDQ: MSFT) Steve Ballmer casually mentioned today that Zune may make its way on to new platforms, such as Windows Mobile. Don’t get this confused with Microsoft’s long-standing insistence that it will not build a Zune phone, which was reiterated as recently as last week by Scott Rockfeld, Microsoft’s group product manager for Windows Mobile. He was quoted as saying: “Microsoft has ‘no plans to build our own phone…Right now we’re happy to share the limelight.”

But those comments don’t necessarily rule out a Zune-flavored Windows Mobile device. Ballmer’s entire quote can be found at Smartphone Thoughts. He said: “At the end of the day, one of the big trends is that all content is going digital. And if we don’t have the software and services that are useful, helpful and valuable for the consumption of music and video, we are sort of not really a player. Now, we built the Zune hardware with the Zune software - and what you’ll see more and more over time is that the Zune software will also be ported to and be more important not just with the hardware but on the PC, on Windows Mobile devices, etc.”