Ballmer was speaking to the press at a launch even in Israel, where he also mentioned that Microsoft’s smartphone partners could drive the company to emerge as a strong third participant in the smartphone market. Google’s Android accounted for 75% of the smartphone market in the third quarter, while Apple’s iOS managed to make up for 14.9% and RIM’s BlackBerry accounted for 4.3% of the market. During this period, Windows Phone users accounted for a mere 2% of the share. Microsoft is not alone in its fight against Google and Apple. Also in the race to be considered as a viable third alternative is BlackBerry, which has been consistently losing customers to Android and iOS over the past couple of years. RIM CEO Thorsten Heins is expecting BlackBerry 10 to take on the third place, post its kickoff in early 2013. However, we think BlackBerry has a formidable competitor in the Microsoft, which has the USP of integrating the Windows Phone 8 with Window 8 OS and is aggressively marketing its phone offerings from Nokia, Samsung and HTC. Given that there is that added advantage of Microsoft Office on mobile devices, Windows Phone 8 does seem a more attractive option for the corporate user too – once BlackBerry’s forte.
