Depends on how you define "success" or "failure" of course.

But I'm sceptical. Windows Mobile 6.x just sucks. Everyone I know who bought a WinMo smartphone hated it and said they would not buy another Windows Mobile Smartphone. Windows Phone 7 will be a complete rewrite, but I think people who have already experienced Windows Mobile will still be very very sceptical ("Better not do the same mistake twice!").

And of course there is the apps problem. The availability of many apps is an important factor to success nowadays. And that's where Windows Phone will have a major problem in the beginning: Windows Phone 7 will not run any Windows Mobile 6.x applications, so at it's launch Windows Phone 7 will have pretty much no apps at all. And since the Windows Mobile market share in smartphone segment has meanwhile dropped to 5%, many developers will probably wait and see how Windows Phone 7 does before they develop for it.

And at least the launch date version of Windows Phone 7 will still be missing lots of features the competitors have:

• no copy and paste
• no multitasking
• Web browser without HTML 5 or Flash support
• Very limited home screen customization
• no builtin possibility of sharing data between apps (apps even cannot access the user's pictures)

The best reason I see why Windows Phone 7 might still become a success is Microsoft's massive advertising budget. When Windows Phone 7 launches, we will probably see ads for it everywhere.

It will probably be moderately successful but I wouldn't think it will take much if any market share away from the Iphone.  Android is doing very well but not many people purchase android apps from the app store.  Apple is just a damnd beast when it comes to Iphone apps sold.  

I have had a few Windows Mobile phones and they have all been fairly nice.  But I happen to like the Iphones set up a lot better.   I like the idea of having my Live account tied into the phone though.  And this may push me over the edge on my next Mobile purchase (as long as I can co-erse my work into paying for it, like I did last time).

Depends on how it manages the business side of things most notably the Push Email but also the casual side. I see these two items merging in modern phones and without both they will not do as well.

Success

SUCCESS!!!

You're right, it won't take market share away from Apple, but Apple's smartphone market share isn't that big anyway:

• Symbian = 41,2%
• RIM-OS = 18,2%
• Android = 17,2%
• iOS (Apple) = 14,2%
• Windows Mobile = 5%

(2Q 2010 smartphone market shares)

With it's rapid growth ( 800% in one year!), Android won't be giving market share away as well. Symbian and RIM-OS are the ones that will lose, especially Symbian.

I know that in Dec 09 Apple had 25% of the marketshare so if your numbers are indeed correct android stole 8% of their market share and gained from others as well.  And I guess MS must have lost 20% some where cause the last numbers I saw they were 25% (which is very significant).   Guess it goes to show you that when it comes to smartphones, being new is king.

Not saying your wrong (I think your numbers are right).  I just couldn't find your numbers anywhere on a quick search,  I didn't have time to look in more detail.

http://mashable.com/2010/02/09/android-iphone-market-share/

Is this shit coming out to Canada? They better hurry cause my Motorola razor is falling appart and I am done with my contract...

Just curious about what purpose you want apps to share data.

Also, it is not entirely true that apps cannot access a user's pictures.  MS wants application developers to provide extensions to the hubs for functionality that should be used in the hubs.  So, if an app developer wants to process a photo or provide some sort of functionality for photos, the app developer would register their app with the Photo Hub.  Once the user is in the photo hub and selects a photo/photos, then user can then select an application that they would like to use with those photos.  At that point the photo/photos would be passed to the application for use with whatever the app developer wants to do.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff402553(v=VS.92).aspx

I think one reason for the big differences in the numbers is that your numbers are U.S. market shares only, while my numbers are worldwide. Furthermore I think your numbers are quite old, because I know I've recently read that Android has surpassed iPhone OS in the USA.

Anyway, my numbers are from the Gartner group:

http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1421013

Personally, I don't think that being new is king. iPhone OS is a couple of years old right now, and they are still expanding their market share, even though only a little. Web OS on the other hand (the one used in recent Palm Smartphones) is quite new and actually a really nice OS, but Palm still lost most of its market share.