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Windows Mobile: We Have 18,000 Mobile Applications. Beat That, iPhone

This morning I received an email from the Windows Mobile press relations team. According to what I read, the number of Windows Mobile phones out in the world has doubled in the last year, and Microsoft expects its WinMo phones to outsell the iPhone, like, forever.

In the email, I am told, "IDC expects Windows Mobile phones to continue to outsell Apple iPhones in both consumer and enterprise shipments, and by 2012, Windows Mobile is expected to double sales over the iPhone in the consumer space, and have nearly nine times the amount of enterprise deployments."

I am sure there are millions upon millions of Windows Mobile devices out there, many more than iPhones, that's for sure. Microsoft expects its foothold in the enterprise market to remain, and to make further inroads with consumers.

There's no doubt that Windows Mobile devices are becoming more consumer-y. Take nearly anything produced by HTC. This apt maker of smartphones has taken its Touch lineup of devices and squarely set them against the iPhone. While the user interface isn't quite the same, HTC's software does much to improve the usability of Windows Mobile. It's innovations like this from Microsoft's partners, more so than anything that the Windows Mobile team is doing, that has resulted in the expanded adoption of WinMo in the recent year.

But that's not going to stop the WinMo team from doing some crowing. So here are some facts and figures from them:

* Windows Mobile sold more than 18 million licenses in fiscal year 2008, seeing triple digit gains in France, Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, Japan and India.
* Consumers today can enjoy a number of Windows Mobile 6.1 phones, including the HTC Diamond, Touch Pro, and Samsung Omnia, and anticipation is rising for upcoming devices such as the Sony Xperia X1.
* We continued strengthening our position in the enterprise evident by 363 lighthouse wins (500 devices or more) which equaled 1.4 million total licenses; 91 were competitive (meaning a RIM BES server was decommissioned).
* We have more than 18,000 Windows Mobile applications, recently adding applications from Bloomberg, Reuters, and SAP, giving people the choice and flexibility they demand.
* We are continuing to leverage acquisitions including Danger, MobiComp, Musiwave, and aQuantive to deliver the best mobile experience in the market

Right now the only stable mobile platform I am using is Nokia's S60 OS.

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