Microsoft's Windows Mobile OS will regain some of the smartphone market share it has lost recently - but will still be in last place in 2014, according to research firm IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker.

Rhomobile will announce Wednesday version 2.0 of its development-as-a-service platform for building smartphone applications.

Microsoft will release a new mobile OS for enterprise handheld devices later this year as it tries to simplify the Windows Mobile upgrade cycle for customers, the company said Thursday.

The smartphone's impact on the mobile phone marketplace globally is well-established, but smartphone growth continues its upward trend in fairly astounding degrees, according to market research firm Gartner Inc.

While Microsoft still isn't commenting on whether current Windows Mobile phones will be upgradeable to its new Windows Phone 7 software, it has finally officially revealed that existing applications won't work on the new platform.

Microsoft on Wednesday announced the availability of a number of handsets running its brand new mobile operating system, Windows Mobile 6.5. While most of the new features and enhancements are aimed at consumers, the company says it isn't overlooking the enterprise.

The release of Windows Mobile 6.5 is not the complete overhaul that users have been demanding. For that the smartphone-using public will have to wait for Windows Mobile 7, scheduled to release in the last quarter of 2010.