When will Windows Phone 7 target the enterprise?

One of the more curious decisions Microsoft made with Windows Phone 7 was to downplay the enterprise, while targeting consumers. In hindsight, given Microsoft's strength in the enterprise, this seems to be a mistake, especially given that both the iPhone and Android phones offers more support. Will Microsoft target the enterprise with the phone operating system's next big update, due some time next year?

As Paul Thurrot points out on his Windows Phone Secrets blog, Windows Phone 7 supports only a subset of policies for Exchange Active Sync (EAS). EAS allows smartphones get corporate information and synchronize e-mail, calendar, and contacts to their phones.

According to a Microsoft site about Windows Phone 7 and EAS these EAS mail and calendar features are missing from Windows Phone 7:

• Conversation view & actions
• Access to online archive mailbox
• Synchronize SMS messages between device and mailbox (via ActiveSync)
• Enable or edit Out of Office settings (OOF)
• View free/busy information for other Exchange users
• Meeting cancellations
• Search for e-mail message in mailbox on Exchange server
• Warning when multiple bad PIN codes has been entered
• PIN code phrase challenge
• Support for UM cards (read a preview of a voice mail)
• Integrated voice mail player
• IRM support
• IPSec support
• No certificate management (must mail certificate to yourself or put it on website)
• User or personal certificates
• Synchronize Outlook notes
• Different Peak/OffPeak synchronization schedules

Why is all that missing? The Microsoft site puts it succinctly:

It's important to note that Windows Phone 7 (WP7) primarily was developed as a consumer device and not an enterprise device.

iPhones and Android phones are increasingly being taken up in enterprises, driven primarily by demands from employees who want to use their phones in their work lives. It's likely that Microsoft, in pushing Windows Phone 7 as a consumer platform, was hoping that a similar dynamic would eventually lead to employees eventually asking that Windows Phone 7 be used in their enterprises as well.

Unfortunately for Microsoft, though, the Windows Phone 7 launch hasn't gone as planned, and sales haven't been stellar. A Goldman Sachs technology analyst says that it won't even reach double-digit market share in 2011.

According to Mary Jo Foley, the next big update for Windows Phone 7, codenamed Mango, will hit sometime after August of next year. It's expected to include HTML 5 support and a Silverlight runtime. Microsoft isn't talking, but I'd bet that it will include substantial enterprise features as well, particularly those on the list of EAS features currently missing from Windows Phone 7. That way, it may be able to gain the kind of enterprise traction that the platform hasn't gotten from consumers.