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Sure, the iPhone gets most of the press nowadays, followed closely by RIM's BlackBerry platform. They're not the only smartphone games in town, however. For instance, Microsoft recently revealed the number of Windows Mobile licenses grew by 81 percent in the past year.

Microsoft sold 18 million copies of its smartphone platform during the past year compared to 11 million during the previous twelve months. While 18 million is a couple million short of Redmond's projections—its goal was 20 million—the number is still mighty impressive.

Redmond's goal is for Windows Mobile to account fo 40 percent of the world's smartphone market by 2012.

As for the smartphone market as whole, according to IDC, the segment grew by 15.3 percent last quarter over the same period a year ago. Manufacturers shipped 306 million smartphones during the second quarter.

IDC predicts Microsoft's position in the smartphone arena will only get stronger. For instance, Windows Mobile should, according to IDC, outpace Apple and the iPhone for the foreseeable future.

So, by 2012, Windows Mobile should account for twice the number of smartphones sold to consumers and, get this, nine times the number deployed in the enterprise.