Slew of new smartphones shed light on enterprise mobility evolution

But what this integration will entail, or what synergies it will achieve (or at least promise), and in what time frame, all remain mysterious in light of Microsoft's continuing silence about its priorities for the mobile enterprise.

Ovum's chief telecoms analysts, Jan Dawson, argues that by extending the distinctive, "Metro" user interface of Windows Phone into Windows 8 on tablets and notebooks, Microsoft paradoxically will make Windows Phone more familiar to a much larger audience. Another synergy is the now-shared kernel in Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. That means "developers can develop for PCs, tablets and smartphones in a unified way, which should help developers get on board with Windows Phone, and that in turn should make the platform more attractive," Dawson says.

That's a view echoed in a blogpost by VentureBeat's Devindra Hardawar, who argues that with the advent of Windows 8, Windows Phone "will no longer feel like an outlier among Microsoft's products. Windows 8 finally wraps up everything Microsoft is doing - desktops, smartphones, tablets, and even the Xbox's new interface into one cohesive computing experience."

Windows 8 is what will "truly differentiate Windows Phone for the upcoming year," he says. "That's important, because the [mobile] platform has suffered from being only slightly more convenient and prettier than its competitors. If Microsoft can market Windows Phone 8 as an extension of Windows 8, it could finally make consumers pay attention."

As Hardawar points out, that's not something that Google or even AppleApple, which has been importing the look and feel of iOS into its desktop/notebook Mac operating system, can offer, or at least offer in quite the same way. Alles zu Apple auf CIO.de