Thanks to Adrian C for the heads up about this story on MS Mobiles and the original story on Infoconomy

Microsoft is making little headway in the market for smartphone operating systems, with the Nokia-backed Symbian consortium virtually monopolising the sector, new research has found. Only 6% of the 1.1 million smartphones shipped in Europe, the Middle East and Africa in the second quarter ran Microsoft's SmartPhone OS, according to UK researcher Canalys. The rest are powered by Microsoft's arch rival, Symbian, whose investors include smartphone makers Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, Sony and Samsung.

The figures are the first real sign that Microsoft has a big fight on its hands to control the market for mobile applications. Microsoft hopes to leverage its OS and wireless .NET strategy in order to dominate the increasingly important mobile computing sector. A further worry for Microsoft is the fact that the smartphone seems to be becoming the mobile computing device of choice, albeit among ordinary consumers rather than business people. Canalys's figures show that smartphones (voice-based advanced wireless devices) are outselling personal digital assistants (PDAs, or data-centric wireless devices) almost two to one.