Free Phones For “Droid Rage” Victims?

Microsoft is apparently offering free Windows Phone handsets to people who complain about Android malware on Twitter.

A prolific tweeter for the company has posted about the offer and has suggested that potential complainers use the hashtag #droidrage to express their anger.

Droid Rage

Ben Rudolph, who tweets as BenThePCGuy, posted “Share your android malware story (there’s lots going around) and you could win a Windows Phone upgrade.”

The tweet was reposted by an official Microsoft account, which could mean that the offer is genuine, however #droidrage has failed to become a trending topic. Rudolph or Microsoft have not disclosed how many phones are available, nor which model would be provided, although it is believed to be the Nokia Lumia 800.

Security has been a key concern about the Android Market, with infected apps often managing to find their way onto the store and security experts warn that this is likely to increase as malware developers increasingly target the mobile operating system.

In March, Google had to remove over 50 malicious apps from the Android Market and was forced to use its remote kill feature which deleted the apps from infected devices. This was followed by an outbreak of spyware in June, and only this week, 22 SMS Fraud Apps which masqueraded as free apps and games but sent SMS messages to premium rate numbers, were deleted from the store.

Windows Phone launched in 2010, but has so far trailed rival operating systems iOS and Android in terms of market share. In February, Microsoft signed a strategic partnership with Nokia which would see the Finnish manufacturer produce phones running the Windows Phone operating system.

The first products of this partnership were the Nokia 710 and 800, but these have so far failed to make an impact on the market as recent research showed that Windows Phone controlled just a 7.3 percent share in the US smartphone market.