Networks In Motion Wins Mobile Incubation Week, Microsoft’s “American Idol” For Mobile Applications

by Robin Wauters, TechCrunch, on April 18, 2009

There’s a good chance you didn’t even know it was going on, but last week Microsoft hosted a competition for mobile application developers on its Silicon Valley Campus in Mountain View, and yesterday announced Networks in Motion as the winner.

The startup was one of six finalists - selected out of a pool of 50 applications - invited by Microsoft to come present ideas for applications running on Windows Mobile and get certified for the upcoming Windows Marketplace for Mobile, which is supposed to become the big, central commerce and distribution point for WinMo apps that is currently lacking.

The company is widely expected to introduce the latest iteration of Windows Mobile at next month’s TechED 2009 conference in Los Angeles (11 May), although devices running Windows Mobile 6.5 won’t start shipping until after the Summer. Microsoft’s current numeric dominance on the smartphone OS market is getting some serious heat from Apple and its iPhone / App Store (which is about to hit 1 billion downloads), and is going to be facing even more stiff competition on the mobile application front from RIM / Blackberry, Nokia and Google Android in the coming years.

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