Windows Mobile used to be one of the most important mobile platforms. But that was long before Apple transformed the mobile scene. Windows Mobile still has many apps, mainly because developers have been writting for it for years and years. But mobile developers are aware that it has been ages since the software was updated, and it seems to be delayed more and more, much like Vista.

One more sign that Windows Mobile might be losing its mojo is a release from Handango that Blackberries are now the most popular device downloading apps from their store. Handango is one of the oldest and largest multiplatform app distributors. Since they have such a wide selection of softtware across so many platforms, they are able to a close eye on what the average mobile users consider their favorite devices. With this latest news suggesting that Microsoft might have a bigger battle on their hands then they originally planned, it brigns up some interesting questions:

• Will Microsoft throw more money and engineers at their old Windows Mobile platform to get the upgraded version out sooner?
• Can Microsoft compete with their legacy software against the newest OS specifically built for high-bandwidth, computationally expensive software like Apple iPhone?
• How much of their OS with they open to developers to compete with completely open source platforms like Google’s Android?
• How will Microsoft compete against mobile OS that are free for phone manufacturers like Android, and where will they make back their money? After all, Google plans to make their cash on mobile ads. What is Microsoft’s vision?

If you follow the mobile market, then you know that there are essentially 4 operating systems that are really making wavies. The two oldest are the Blackberry, which is closed source and private, and Symbian, which was recently purchased by Nokia and made open source and free. Both of these systems are rather old school. Their basic code was written before the days of social networking and user generated content. The last two are the newest, the Apple iPhone, which is closed and private, and Google’s Android, which is open source and free. Both of these two systems were freshly created with the newest Internet applications in mind.

There are lots of other programming languages for mobile devices that you just don’t hear much about anymore. Sometimes you hear about the open source effort of Linmo, a kind of open source Linux for smartphones, mentioned in the same sentence as the Google Android, which borrowed heavily from it. But without a big company and an even bigger marketing effort, it is unlikely that it will be able to compete with other free, solid operating systems. The other big loser is Java for mobile phones, also called J2ME. It has dropped in importance so much that Handango, a top distributor of mobile applications, will not even distribute free J2ME applications anymore. Ouch!

Jason Ankeny had a great post yesterday about the differences between the Android Market and the iPhone App store. Just going by numbers, Google is off to a very slow start compared to Apple. They have 62 apps,  only 1/10 the number of apps that Apple had at the launch of their store. Several of these were the ones that one the Google Android competition. Hopefully, things will improve soon.

Chances are that developers were unhappy about how Google was releasing the improved versions of the Android SDK to the competition winners and not to the community at large. As a result of this slight by Google, many developers did not create applications for the Google phone. Also, many developers are probably taking a wait and see attitude.

It is no wonder. Every day there are more mobile systems and app stores to program for. Do you program for the ultra successful iPhone store where your app will be listed among 7000 others? Or do you go with the Blackberry and its new store? For a company that has been pursuing the business customer for years, do they know how to court the regular consumer and are there enough regular consumers on the Blackberry to make it worth the time and effort.

Two interesting reports came out today. At first glance, they would seem to have nothing to do with each other. But as you begin to think about, you can see that they are very closely tied.

The first report lists the top 10 handsets in the U.S. Not too surprisingly, the top spot goes to that business person’s favorite, the Blackberry curve with 26% of the market. The closest competitor is the consumer friendly Apple iPhone at 9%. Not bad for iPhone since it has only been selling for over a year while the Blackberry is often purchased by a person’s employer.

The second report states that a measly 12% of Americans have used high-end mobile apps like email and video. These reports sound like they are coming from different countries. What people who work in the mobile space to create the next great mobile service forget is that most Americans don’t even try these services.

There is still much more education of the mobile consumer to come. In the next stage of mobility, the iPhone will be more important than the Blackberry. Both are great devices and are bringing the consumer what they want. But the iPhone with its limited feature set on its clean, intuitive user interface is the most likely device to teach consumers what they can do with the phones.