Microsoft wants 40% of the Smartphone market by 2012. Sure, okay.

I think this is possible considering the Palm OS is dying a lsow death. If MS makes the desired changes to broaden the apeal and stabilityof WM they will have a shot. The act that the iPhone is locked to AT&T will also help.

Seems rather unlikely. Its easy to increase sales by 50-100% every year (They sold 11 million in FY 2007 and are confident of selling 20 million in FY 2008) but that does not translate into market share growth because the market itself is growing at the same tremendous rate.

MS is likely to sell at least 25 million in calender year 2008, and HTC is rumoured to expect to sell around 4 million Touch Diamonds in the last 6 months of 2008 alone.

Surur

More power to them. I wish Microsoft well on this endeavor, but if my experience over the past six months with an AT&T Tilt is any indication they have a lot to overcome. Microsoft needs to get serious about the end user experience and get their device makers in line. The fact they let HTC and AT&T release the Tilt with serious performance problems it has is not something that can continue. Especially when they are up against RIM and Apple, two companies who seem to care a great deal about the end user experience. Microsoft needs to get a handle on device makers who release substandard products and carriers who sell these devices loaded down with garbage trialware. Until then, Microsoft is doomed to become the same bit player that Palm is.

Symbian is still the 800lb gorilla of operating systems because Nokia is still the 800lb gorilla of handset manufacturers. Nokia does well outside the U.S. because for the most part, phones and service are separate businesses giving manufacturers like Nokia leverage that they just don't have in the U.S., that is, until Apple came along. Not too long ago, Nokia became so frustrated with its failure to penetrate the U.S. market that they sacked and replaced almost all their stateside sales force in an attempt to reformulate and better align their business plan with the U.S. carrier cartel. So far, the changes haven't improved Nokia's fortunes.

Apple has really changed the game. They've retained control of the iPhone, the reason Verizon, the first carrier approached by Apple, passed on the device. Apple provides excellent customer service and has continued to improve the iPhone, enhancing features and introducing new ones through frequent OS updates. The importance of this can't be over emphasized: Apple is treating the iPhone for what it is, a small hand-held multi-purpose computer and communication device which is upgraded through regular OS updates and third party applications. No other mobile phone manufacturer or carrier is doing this to the extent Apple is and this is the most important innovation that Apple has brought to the mobile phone market.

Microsoft is neither a carrier or a handset manufacturer. The only leverage it had, an innovative mobile OS when it first appeared in Pocket PCs like the early Compaq iPAQs, has been squandered by little innovation since then. Windows Mobile may be further hobbled by the real possibility that the day of specialized operating systems on smart phones is coming to end: witness OS X and Java (Android).