We'll see: Gartner has been wildly inaccurate on mobile futures in the past.

Windows 8, running on any chip, is actually MS's best hope. They at least have the right idea, and they have the resources to deliver if they can get those resources focused (as does not always happen: c.f. Vista). They have some great designers in-house (including one of the best, Bill Buxton, as well as the new head of design in games, Rahul Sood). They need to have designers as co-leaders of the effort -- there's a reason Apple has better UX, and the reason is that a designer heads the company.

For business apps, however, I think Muglia had it right: it's all about HTML5 (as a codeword or symbol for enhanced HTML UI involving parts of HTML5 and a healthy doses of CSS). Having 3 multi-platform OS's (Win8, ChromeOS, and WebOS) will be great for the market. I hope they succeed, because any monopoly, even by companies who promise to do no evil, nearly always, well always (thinking of Hewlett-Packard and Bell Labs) end up succumbing to stockholder pressure.

>Gartner is predicting it.http://wmpoweruser.com/gartner-predicts-windows-phone-7-will-overtake-blackberry-in-2013-overtake-iphone-in-2015/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
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>>Only one prognosticator, IDC. And it was built on a very long string of assumptions, e.g., that nearly every Nokia customer will switch to a WinMo phone. I think not. I've read commentators who either took them apart or deeply questioned the conclusion, and none who supported it.