At least Microsoft got the software right this time. Whether the embattled technology giant will be able to carve out more market share for the new Windows Phone 7 (WP7), unveiled yesterday (full video of the introduction available here), all boils down to marketing.

Let’s face it: Microsoft’s recent forays into the mobile space have been rocky at best. The Kin twins, introduced in April to great fanfare but generally poor reviews, lasted less than two months before being pulled from the market, their ambitions done in by flawed execution and high pricing for both the phones and the accompanying data plans.

Before that, the only major mobile news from Microsoft frankly wasn’t all that major. In October 2009, it launched Windows Mobile 6.5, a mild rework of the aging Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system designed to tide over Windows fans for a full year until WP7 was ready. Not surprisingly, it failed to make much of an impression, in no small part because it built on a platform that no one really loved in the first place.

A complete reboot was in order. Much as Microsoft did with Bing, it has aimed for a clean slate with WP7. Microsoft is adopting what it regards as a hybrid version of the Apple and Android approach: There will be multiple manufacturer partners but a single standardized OS regardless of the manufacturer. According to Microsoft, this will provide the best of both worlds—the unified experience of Apple’s iOS platform combined with the scale of Android.

The Twitter traffic during yesterday’s launch event with AT&T and early hands-on assessments have been positive if not downright enthusiastic, with Microsoft earning praise for taking a fresh, non-app-focused approached to the smartphone. There will be apps of course, but the primary user interface on the home screen will be customizable “tiles” designed to get users quickly to key functions and content.

Having virtually sat out the last few mobile device development cycles and because of its recent setbacks, Microsoft has a lot a ground to make up in the mobile space. But it can draw on some key strengths, namely integration with its Office suite and the Xbox gaming platform.

Office software still has a strong hold in the enterprise space, and that represents a distinct competitive advantage over any of the other smartphone platforms. And as I noted in my recent “Mobile Content: Games, Music and Video Take to the Cloud” report (full version available here to eMarketer Total Access clients only), gaming represents a significant growth opportunity for both paid and ad-supported content. But the bottom line is that making up all that lost ground will be tough, and Microsoft finds itself in the unenviable position of playing David vs Apple and Google’s Goliath.

Marketing will be a vital ingredient in WP7′s success or failure. Simply put, Microsoft has to convince consumers and business users why WP7 is worth their attention. Working with Crispin, Porter + Bogusky, Microsoft has fashioned a new ad campaign that represents a complete reversal from message used to market the Kin. As Mashable described it, “Rather than the phone being the center of your life, your life is the center of the phone. ” In classic Crispin, Porter fashion, the ads are distinctive, quirky and somewhat oblique, which is to say that the general public may need a more pointed message to get them to sit up and take notice.

And that’s where the carriers and Microsoft’s hybrid approach come in. Android has seen such strong growth this year in large part because of aggressive marketing support from the carriers. Assuming that Microsoft has the table stakes to play effectively in the smartphone game, a similar level of support will be crucial to WP7′s success.

BlackBerry owns a commanding 42% share of US smartphone subscribers (and a 9% share of the total subscriber population), according to July data from comScore, and globally, BlackBerry shipments rose 45% from Q1 2009 to Q1 2010. So why has the introduction of its newest smartphone, the Torch, and version 6 of its proprietary operating system been described as a make-or-break moment for BlackBerry?

First off, Research In Motion (RIM) may hold the lead among US smartphone subscribers, but it certainly isn’t gaining share. At best, RIM is managing to tread water while other platforms, most notably Android, surge ahead. Globally, Canalys projects 169% year-over-year growth in Android smartphone shipments in 2010 and 100% year-over-year growth in total market share. RIM, by contrast, is forecast to lose six points of market share.

Second, and perhaps more worrisome for RIM, is BlackBerry users’ lack of loyalty to the platform. In findings released this week, Nielsen revealed that only 42% of current BlackBerry owners would opt for another BlackBerry as their next smartphone, while 29% want an iPhone and 21% have their eyes on an Android device.

Now, had Nielsen’s survey sample included only dedicated business users, who constitute the core of the BlackBerry faithful, the results might have looked somewhat different. But that highlights the very challenge BlackBerry faces in the market today: with more mobile users, including both consumers and business users, consolidating their communication, media consumption and social networking activities on a single device, the line between business and personal is rapidly eroding. And that means smartphones need to be really good at many things, not just really good for e-mail, which has historically been BlackBerry’s strong suit.

When the competition includes the iPhone 4, HTC EVO 4G, Motorola Droid X, Samsung Galaxy S and others in the annoyingly termed “superphone” class, BlackBerry devices seem desperately short on the “wow” factor: good enough for the faithful, but not appealing enough to attract new users to the fold. That was the consensus among analysts polled by FierceWireless. Leading tech journalists had a mixed reaction, but at best, RIM seems to have caught up with its rivals. There are few voices to suggest this latest BlackBerry surpasses the other leading smartphones on the market.

It will be interesting to watch whether the Torch and OS6 light the way as a new direction for RIM or whether the BlackBerry platform will continue to suffer from the perception that it is stagnating in the face of increasingly fierce competition in the smartphone market.

Facebook is making it easier for people to access its service from their mobile phones. Deals struck with more than 50 mobile carriers in 45 countries will give free access to many features, without any data charges.

This offering, dubbed 0.facebook.com, will likely help Facebook increase its usage in developing countries. Among the countries where people can access the free mobile service are Brazil and India. In Brazil, where Google’s orkut still dominates, Facebook is used by just 2.3% of the population, or 4.2 million monthly active users, according to InsideFacebook.com’s Facebook Global Monitor. In India, just over 9 million people use Facebook, InsideFacebook.com reported.

By contrast, eMarketer estimates that 92.5% of Brazil’s population, or 186 million people, will be mobile subscribers this year, In India, just over one-half of the population, or 604 million people, will subscribe to mobile service in 2010. In China, there will be more mobile Internet users in China in 2010 than the entire population of the US. My colleague Noah Elkin, in his recent “BRIC Mobile” report, writes that Brazil, Russia, India and China (the BRIC nations) have “a high percentage of price-sensitive prepaid users who spend little on mobile services beyond basic voice and text messaging.”

But 0.facebook.com is not solely aimed at developing nations. The free offering is also available from carriers in Austria, Belgium and Finland, among others. And mobile operators in Australia, New Zealand and France are slated to come on board soon.

Overall, eMarketer estimates that there will be 223.4 million mobile social network users worldwide in 2010, representing 4.6% of mobile subscribers and 34% of mobile Internet users.

Facebook has focused most of its attention on growing its computer-based audience. It has more than 100 million mobile users out of a total user base of 400 million-plus. Some believe Facebook will cross 500 million users by June. But with its new mobile service, it has the potential to make its mobile audience grow quickly, too.

I was genuinely surprised (and pleased) by the level of interest in my blog post last week on mobile stats in the BRIC countries. It is certainly the case that some of the numbers are eye-popping, as they inevitably will be anytime you deal with populations as large as those in China and India. But when I wrote the post, I assumed that would be self-evident.

At the same time, I will admit that putting out such lofty projections brought to mind the “data inflation” of the Internet boom a decade ago, when research firms, investment banks and media outlets effectively collaborated in a game of one-upmanship – the bigger the projection, the more coverage it got. Although this was decidedly not our intent, it is hard to put “billion” after anything without recalling the excesses of the Internet bubble.

Skepticism of market projections – born from the previous cycle of boom and bust – was apparent on a number of blogs that cited my earlier post. At eMarketer, we certainly both welcome and encourage the scrutiny. Still, I would again urge readers and those interested in the BRIC markets to not get overly caught up in the big numbers and focus instead on trends in mobile adoption and usage.

For me, the most relevant bits of information are those that reveal the degree to which mobile devices are vital communications lifelines for emerging market consumers – their “all-access pass,” as I describe them in the full BRIC Mobile report. This is as much the case for the farmer working in a remote rural area who can now get up-to-the-minute commodity prices delivered to a mobile handset as it is for the urban consumer who uses a smartphone to post a social network status update. Two highly different settings, user types and need states, but both cases where mobile helps users achieve their goals.

The bottom line: not all of China’s projected 1.3 billion mobile subscribers in 2014 will be created equal. Rather, as I conclude in the report:

In each of the BRIC countries, the mobile user population is divided along several key lines, notably age, income, location (urban versus rural), ethnicity and language, just to name a few. The same holds true for the BRIC countries as a unit. Each country and each subsegment within the BRICs has a distinct usage profile and brings with it a unique set of opportunities and challenges.

Google has always been about disruption. In a very short span of time, it has changed the way we think about online search and turned the advertising world on its head, in the process becoming the colossus of the online world. Now, as the fabled “Google Phone,” which will bear the name “Nexus One,” moves closer to reality, Google appears set to upend the mobile communications industry as well.

Rumors have been swirling about the Google Phone for the past several months, and Google has been characteristically silent on the subject. But over the weekend, as Mashable reported, in response to tweets coming from inside the company, Google took the rare step of acknowledging the phone’s existence. Yet, the acknowledgment was vague, referring to the phone as a “mobile lab”—the kind of non-response response we’ve come to expect from Google about new products the company has under development.

More details quickly leaked out (including some pictures of the phone “in the wild”). Peter Kafka at All Things Digital confirmed that Google plans to sell the phone directly, meaning unlocked and without the usual subsidies that US mobile consumers have grown accustomed to. Call Google’s approach “European style,” although with a twist. Google plans to enlist carriers as distribution partners. Verizon got first dibs (as it did with the iPhone), and passed (also like it did with the iPhone), but T-Mobile jumped at the chance, Kafka reported.

No word so far on pricing, but I strongly suspect that Google will figure out some innovative way to make the phone more affordable than the typical unlocked handset. A more relevant question is how Google, a company not know for either direct sales or service, particularly where hardware is concerned, will handle those vital components of the handset business.

Google’s decision to build a phone and market the device in the way reports indicate is entirely lacking in precedent. And while Kafka’s blog post indicated that Google hopes to maintain a collaborative relationship with the wireless carriers, it’s hard to not to see the Nexus One as a shot across their bows and a potential threat to the already fragile loyalty of their subscribers.

As if buying AdMob were not enough to ignite the mobile industry, the impending launch of the Nexus One threatens to set it ablaze.