Windows 8 Phone could challenge iPhone

Windows 8 Phone could become the third best selling smartphone in the industry, ultimately matching Apple's iPhone market share by 2015.

That is the view of Gartner Research, who says if the alliance between Nokia and Microsoft succeeds, the device could surpass Research in Motion's Blackberry by 2013 and eventually challenge Apple's second place in the ladder with Google's Android expected to hold the market lead.

Speaking at the Gartner Symposium, company vice president David Cearley predicted smartphones will overtake PCs as the most common web access device worldwide next year, with media tablet shipments reaching 50% of laptop shipments by 2015.

"We expect Windows 8 will remain relatively niche and more attractive to organisations than individual consumers. Developers of corporate applications should consider Windows tablet as a target device in 2013," Cearley says.

Cearley also believes consumerisation will mean enterprises will not be able to force employees to give up their iPads or prevent the use of Windows 8 but instead support a variety of form factors, reducing the ability to standardize PC and tablet hardware.

The implications for IT are that in an era of PC dominance with Windows as the single platform will be replaced with a post-PC era where Windows is just one of a variety of environments IT will need to support according to Gartner.

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