Microsoft continues to humiliate Apple in both the desktop and server markets, with Apple's market share stuck stubbornly below 5 percent in the former, and hovering a fraction above 0 percent in the latter.

But when it comes to the mobile operating system market, it's Microsoft that's eating humble pie—of a brand with a distinctly Apple flavor.

That's because despite its domination of desktop and server room operating system sales, Microsoft's attempts in the mobile arena have been lame, lame, lame, to say the least: after years of laboring, Microsoft's Windows Mobile managed a smartphone OS market share of just 9 percent in the second quarter of this year, according to Gartner. By contrast, Apple's iPhone has already bagged over 13 percent in just two years--and that figure is rising fast.

So the obvious question that comes to mind is this: why does a company like Microsoft--one that is so successful at selling desktop and server operating systems--do so dismally in the mobile arena, and why does a company like Apple--one that is such a dismal failure in the desktop and server operating system market--do so well in the mobile arena?

One reason the iPhone has succeeded so remarkably is because the competition's OSes are so bad. Symbian? BlackBerry? Windows Mobile? Oh, please! These fiddly little mobile OSes might have seemed acceptable until Apple burst onto the scene, but once the iPhone was released the game was over. Apple's mobile OS is so easy to use that anything else looks ridiculous in comparison. Even if it's not quite ready for enterprise prime-time, it's changed the game and sent the other mobile OS makers scurrying to follow Apple's lead.

Will that stop the iPhone? Probably not.

Get the full story here at Server Watch.