• TechCrunch et al., Friday, August 27, 2010 5:15 PM

Presently a distant third in the increasingly critical mobile market, Microsoft has committed over half a billion dollars to help launch its Windows Phone 7 platform this fall, reports TechCrunch.

"Nearly four years after Apple launched the iPhone and two years after Google open-sourced the code for its Android operating system, Microsoft is finally set to re-enter the mobile market this holiday season in a serious way with Windows Phone 7," TechCrunch writes.

ZDNet's Mary-Jo Foley says TechCrunch is "combining guesswork with analyst estimates," and estimates herself that the numbers will actually be much higher. "I think that number is low -- and needs to be a lot higher given the obstacles the Softies need to overcome to become a player in the smartphone market."

To illustrate, Foley adds: "Microsoft easily spent over a billion dollars over three years to develop and launch the now-defunct Kin phones, which were a tiny subset of its Windows Phone base."

However much Microsoft spends, the funds will most likely be spread across marketing, developers, handset makers and likely carriers to ensure the platform gets what Information Week calls, "the largest smartphone platform launch in history."

Indeed, according to TechCrunch, $400 million alone is going to marketing to support the launch.

What's more, according to Jonathan Goldberg, an analyst with Deutsche Bank, Microsoft will likely spend billions in the first year on marketing and development.

And so it should, some industry watchers say. "This is Microsoft's last chance to get serious about mobile phones," writes Information Week. "If Windows Phone 7 stumbles out of the gate, there won't be a Windows Phone 8. Microsoft cannot afford to have a launch similar to WebOS either. That platform launched to a lot of hoopla then quickly faded as developers failed to flock to the platform, which led to users having a tentative response to a platform with relatively few applications."

Read the whole story at TechCrunch et al. »