Windows Phone 7 has uphill climb in winning mobile market

Developers reluctant to create apps specifically for Windows.

To get an idea of how far behind Microsoft Corp. is in the mobile and tablet space, look no further than Brian Greenstone.

The 43-year-old president of Pangea Software Inc. has built a thriving business developing games for Apple Inc.'s popular iPhone and iPad. Among his best sellers: Enigmo, in which players try to catch drips with a system of pipes.

Greenstone, who has developed games for Windows in the past, says he won't bother developing a version specifically for Microsoft, because Microsoft hasn't got a significant presence in mobile products.

Pangea "will simply do quick ports of their iPhone" apps to Windows Phone 7, the latest version of Microsoft's mobile operating system, Greenstone says. Porting means modifying a game to run on a system other than the one for which it was designed.

Greenstone's reluctance to develop apps for Windows underscores just how far Microsoft has fallen behind rivals Apple and Google Inc. in the fast-growing mobile market. Windows Phone 7, a well-regarded but little-used operating system, has just 8% of the mobile market, according to comScore. Apple and Google, on the other hand, control a combined 56%. Microsoft also doesn't have an operating system designed for tablets, a hot market that is cutting into PCs, Microsoft's strong suit.

On Friday, the tablet market will likely get even hotter, when Apple begins selling the second generation of its iPad device.

FBR Capital Markets, an investment bank, sees tablet sales eating away 8% of the PC market's growth in 2011. Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft is still reliant on PC product sales, which generated 57% of its $36.1 billion in revenue posted in the first half of the fiscal year.

Microsoft hasn't said when it will have a tablet-compatible OS on the market, though it did say in January that the next version of Windows will work on tablets.

Microsoft declined to comment for this story.

Analysts say Microsoft's tablet-ready OS will probably be available by next year's holiday shopping season. By that time, Apple will likely be on the third version of its iPad product and Google will have refined its Android mobile OS, which has already been optimized for