ITWire

Given the 300,000+ app library at Apple's app store, and the 100,000+ that Google's Android Market now holds, the appeal of mobile apps is ultra-clear.

Given the relatively equal footing all of the major platforms are now on in terms of multitouch interfaces and form factors, a multi-platform approach makes sense if you want your app to be used by and/or bought by as many people as possible.

Certainly decisions will have to be made over which platforms to support if development, time or other costs are too high, but with Windows Phone 7, Microsoft has massively rebooted its mobile strategy and is clearly in with a real chance to again become a very strong player with tens of millions of handsets sold.

While there's already talk of Windows Phone 8, Windows 8 and Windows 8 Embedded over at Softpedia, and while these platforms will no doubt come, whether they are dubbed with the number 8 or not, they're still too far off in the future.

Given the success of the '7' line of products, which even includes a positive launch for Windows Phone 7 devices (even if there weren't midnight madness sales with queues that lasted well into the wee hours of the morning as happened with the recent launch of an iCompetitor's fourth handset), then an 8 designation for the next line would make obvious sense.

But to worry about that now is getting ahead of the situation.

Now all eyes will be on the submission process, something that is supposed to take 3-5 days, and also on the apps that emerge onto Microsoft's Marketplace, from their number to their quality as you would naturally expect.

Already the Windows Phone 7 developer forum is buzzing with questions and answers, so activity is clearly well underway.

In theory, apps will start arriving quickly, with pundits, analysts, competitors and Microsoft itself keenly watching how quickly it takes for the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace to reach 10,000 apps, 25,000 apps, 50,000 apps, 100,000 apps and more.

The quicker some nice numerical milestones are released with as good a cross section of apps as possible the better for Microsoft to continuing appealing to both consumers and developers, and likewise, the quicker Microsoft can release new WP7 OS updates to introduce missing features like the planned copy and paste update, or third-party multitasking, the better too.

After all, we all know that Microsoft's competitors are bolder, better and stronger than they've ever been before.

It's all the more reason why right now, and with all the updates we'll see in 2011 and beyond, why we're living in a golden age of smartphones and tablets.

Long may the golden age last, and spirited may the competition continue!