I think this is what everyone is forgetting. MS can attack the cooperate market. Its not sexy but there is a truckload of cash there.
I always thought it would be a good move for Oracle to buy RIM. They could then offer an end to end solution for businesses, from hardware (sun), OS (solaris), database (oracle), language (java), all the middle ware software through to the phone. I could see a lot of big companies jumping on that platform in a heartbeat.
I haven't forgotten it. I've actually mentioned it several times in HN threads on the subject, suggesting that the only sane way forward for Microsoft in the mobile market is to hit the enterprise market extremely hard and take the place of Blackberry (which has only just recently lost the crown in the business world).
Apple has never known how to provide for the enterprise effectively. Hell, it was several months before iPhones could be locked, for crying out loud, which is one of the big reasons adoption was extremely slow in the enterprise...at least at the companies I know who allowed employees to choose their own phone, but disallowed iPhone (Google among them). And, Google and the Android makers haven't really tried to tackle the enterprise market in any notable way, though the openness of the platform allows bigger businesses to do what they need to do, regardless of vendor support...which is pretty powerful, too.
If IT guys are choosing, I'd be surprised if they don't choose Open Source stuff more often than something from MS. But, I have biases from my own days as an IT guy.
Alas IT guys rarely get to make the choice in any large organization.
To be honest if I was in that situation, I would want an end to end solution too. Im not aware of any end to end corporate solution for android phones out there actually. Perhaps that's a business opportunity for someone with enough capitol to start it.
I always thought it would be a good move for Oracle to buy RIM. They could then offer an end to end solution for businesses, from hardware (sun), OS (solaris), database (oracle), language (java), all the middle ware software through to the phone. I could see a lot of big companies jumping on that platform in a heartbeat.