Google and Apple may have grabbed the mobile market from anyone else unlucky enough to have a mobile operating system in 2011, but 2012 could be a different story. Microsoft has made some decent moves near the tail end of the year, and if their OS can operate without any major issues, Windows Phone 7 (WP7) may just have a banner year.

The Current Mobile Landscape

You can best sum up the mobile space's 2011 by saying it was the year that Android and iOS truly separated themselves from the pack. BlackBerry, Symbian, WebOS, and Windows all more or less fell by the wayside as one consumer after another chose an Android or iOS device. Nokia's losses were so much that the company gave up on the Symbian OS and announced a partnership with Microsoft.

With more and more businesses turning to smartphones and tablets as the primary way to keep employees connected, the possibility of a third major player gaining traction gets considerably smaller by the day. However, there is still time left for another OS to get into the mix.

The Possibilities for Windows Phone 7

As this Information Week article points out, Windows Phone has some good things going for it. First, the software will eventually have two tiers: Tango, which caters to the budget-friendly smartphone crowd, and Apollo, which caters to businesses. Second, the new Windows PC operating system will adopt the Metro interface for its basic appearance, which will inevitably make people more comfortable with the OS on their mobile devices. Finally, recent news reports show that there will be an upcoming LTE-capable Windows device available through AT&T.

With the right synergy and device lineup, Windows stands a chance of gaining some market share in the upcoming year. Even its app store just passed a significant milestone and shows some signs of strength moving into 2012. Of course, jut a few poor device showings could crumple Microsoft's plans, but hopefully the company takes its time on the major WP7 releases to give the OS a chance in the marketplace.

Understanding the Future of Mobile

For IT departments, understanding the future of the mobile space may be more important than understanding its current state. Many companies are now encouraging their employees to use personal devices for business purposes, and the task of ensuring that these devices are capable of accessing business-critical information falls on IT. Even apps that are accessed through a web portal can act differently on different operating systems and require a number of additional testing and development steps.

For companies that decide to take the extra step of developing actual applications for employees to work with, adding a third major OS to the mix can significantly increase development costs or even result in the company turning away from the bring-your-own-device model and opting instead for company-owned devices. This reality requires that IT leaders stay on top of smartphone market share numbers, even if those numbers predominantly reflect consumer, rather than business, sentiment, as a sharp increase in WP7 phone sales will soon be followed by the requirement that IT supports WP7 devices.

Of course, as this CNET article points out, the growth of an alternative mobile OS isn't necessarily a bad thing. While iOS and Android have done some interesting things recently, there is a feeling that innovation in the mobile space may be diminishing. The introduction of a serious third player, on top of BlackBerry, which could still turn things around, would eventually result in positive things for the industry as a whole.