HTC may be financially down, but its innovative capabilities continue to be strong. That may be what impressed Amazon, to team up with the beleaguered Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer for its rumoured smartphone project. Although confirmation from both Amazon and HTC has not been forthcoming, tech analysts have sprung up again with news on the alliance after it was again reported recently by the Financial Times.

Accordingly to technology website TechCrunch, the news of an Amazon smartphone has been round for some time now with intermittent leaks about a range of devices being under development. News is that Amazon, as early at 2011, was considering the option to acquiring Blackberry manufacturer RIM. Had it fructified, Amazon would have got a head-start in the tough smartphone market. The idea, however, did not go through.

TechCrunch believes that the very brand of Amazon is going to be enough to induce buyers to give its smartphones a try, and effort which would be akin to the current business model of Kindle Fire tablets.

If the product was to actually hit the market it would bring more cheer to HTC. In spite of much acclaimed HTC One, Taiwanese manufacturer is a sinking boat. ZDNet reports that the company faced with a price margin challenges due to the high cost of its flagship smartphone HTC One, the company has in recent years seen a rapid downfall. It saw a 70 per cent fall in net profits in the first quarter of 2012.The company is also facing a major attrition crisis as many of its high profile executives, including its chief operating officer, have left the firm.

But, considering its origin as a white-label gadget manufacturer, HTC has the temperament to get into queerly potentially trail blazing partnerships. HTC tied up with Google in 2008, to develop the first publicly available Android device creating the Nexus family of smartphones. Later it also hooked-up with Facebook to develop HTC First, probably the only device pre-loaded with the Facebook's home interface.

ZDNet report that in July 2012, around the time when the latest rumours of Amazon's foray into the smartphone arena broke out, Microsoft's Senior Director of Windows Phone business development, Robert Williams left the company to join Amazon. Mr Williams entry into Amazon led to further speculation that the company was "ramping up its smartphone development efforts."

Combined with Mr Williams joining Amazon and considering that HTC has in the past developed Windows-based smartphones, the gossip is that the rumoured Amazon-HTC smartphone, if true, could be a Windows Phone-based device.

According to ranking by comScore, Windows presently holds the fourth place in the smartphone platform, preceded Google's Android as first, Apple's iOS second and Blackberry in the third position. With Blackberry's fortunes in doldrums, Windows is eying to move up the ladder and the rumoured Amazon-HTC smartphone could possibly ride this wave.