Microsoft fans are really keen on seeing a Surface Phone device

How eager are you to see a Surface-branded phone make its way to the market? Eager enough to sign a petition? A group of Microsoft fans want to put pressure on the tech giant to bring out a Surface that fits in your pocket, so much so that they've created an online petition to collect names.

With 3,000 signatures and rising at the time of writing, the petition seems to be attracting a fair amount of interest, though whether it's enough to turn heads and change engineering plans at Microsoft remains to be seen. It probably can't hurt.

"I myself wouldn't mind paying between $799-$999 for this phone if it happened and looked like the pictures that we have seen from those leaks," says petition starter Zachary Hinski, saying that "money is power" and Microsoft will be "forced into action" if the petition manages to get gather enough momentum online.

The long history of the Surface Phone

Of course rumors about a Surface Phone have been floating around the tech world for years now, but we still don't know if it's actually a real device. We've seen hints in the code for Windows 10, concept images mocked up on the web, and patents filed by Microsoft pointing to the existence of such a device.

The decline and fall of Windows Phone seemed to have put paid to the chances of getting a Microsoft-made smartphone, but then the company started bringing out a rather nice line of Surface hardware so it seemed like a mobile might be back on the cards.

Most recently, we've heard rumors that Microsoft wants to build something that's half smartphone, half tablet computer, powered by a new operating system in development called Andromeda. It would certainly round out Microsoft's family of Surface devices – but whether or not a petition will sway MIcrosoft one way or another remains to be seen.