How Windows Mobile lost the lead to the Apple iPhone

Here's an interesting article about how Microsoft stumbled in the smartphone race.  While Microsoft decided the route to success was via the enterprise (by chasing RIM's success with the Blackberry), Apple decided that success lay in the arms in the consumer.  And success here is determined by mobile applications.  Apple's AppStore has become hugely popularly with tens of thousands of applications for consumers to choose from.  This, somewhat surprisingly, is also helping driving penetration in the Enterprise market as many corporate useres admit downloading games and travel applications onto their iPhone.

If mobile applications are the route to your success, then developers being the critical audience.  Pander to them by providing them with the right tools, support and eco-system and they will do the rest.  Since the iPhone is a single hardware platform (as opposed to Windows Mobile that is available from LG, Samsung and HTC), this also helps developers since they only have to build and test one version of the application.