Windows Phone 7: A New Contender?

Brandon Watson, Microsoft’s developer evangelist, last week caused a stir within the industry when he announced that the Windows Phone 7 toolkit had been downloaded 1.5 million times. He also then went on to state they were adding 1200 developers every week.

We have also observed a slow but steady increasing testing popularity amongst our customers in recent months, with Windows Phone 7 reaching a 1.3% share of total testing time in our latest DeviceAnywhere Metrics report.

Buzz around Windows Phone 7 peaked in February following the announcement of a strategic partnership that would see the OS used in Nokia handsets (due in 2012). But as cited in recent posts the true litmus test for the sustained growth of a platform is appeal to the enterprise market.

The platforms enterprise features were showcased at launch, with Brandon Watson  strong SharePoint and Office integration, remote wiping and support for multiple Exchange Server accounts being just a few of them.

But as we know these aren’t the features that resulted in the growth of Android and iPhone use in enterprise, having to appeal to the consumer is essential. Appealing to the “Bring Your Own Device” enterprise, that many IT departments dread, the finger friendly interface, form factor and hardware specifications has gotten consumer hearts racing.

However, to speed up the adoption of Windows Phone 7 by enterprises, albeit through consumer channels, Microsoft will need to ensure that there are enough phones to attract app developers and boost the revenue that apps can bring in. So far the company has shipped 2 million Windows Phone 7 devices in the last quarter of 2010 compared to 14.1 million Apple iPhones, 33.3 million Android devices and 14.6 million BlackBerry units.

Windows Phone 7 market share is still insignificant compared to its strongest competitors. However, it is a great achievement for the five months in which the platform has been around and we expect to see further growth in its popularity with app developers, both consumer and enterprise alike.

Mobile Enterprise Applications: A Huge Market Opportunity

The recent acquisition of Sybase by SAP, and the subsequent release of the new Mobility Platform, has resulted in a heated discussion around the challenges and opportunities for companies looking to extend the availability of enterprise applications onto the mobile platform.

Reaching out to the mobile platform is a necessity brought by the quickly changing demands of enterprise mobility and has the potential to change the way we do business for the better; however it also faces an array of unique challenges.

The complexity of fragmentation is a constant challenge in the development of consumer mobile applications, however this somewhat pales in comparison when mobilising enterprise software. Adapting solutions to work across a pool of devices, operating systems and even firmware versions can represent a major challenge when looking to provide even the most basic service to your workforce, especially when required to work with your own organisations back-office systems and secure networks.

Boxtone, a Mobile Management Software company focused on the enterprise space, has written a guide on “managing the diversity network” citing three models possible solutions. As with most things mobile there is no one size fits all, with each company required to assess their own requirements and available resources to ensure the appropriate ROI.

What is evident is that mobile operating systems and software providers are looking to the enterprise market as a huge opportunity and we are likely to see several mobile software providers look to get on the ground level.