Microsoft had a mobile phone OS in 2003, and you could purchase applications for it.

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Then there are the more or less shadowy plans by members of the Big Five currently without a mobile phone OS to their name.

FORBES: Pretenders To The Phone Throne - Ubuntu To Take On iOS and Android. And Windows Phone. And Sailfish. And Tizen. And...

The biggest phone we can see of this baker's dozen of a lineup is the HTC Gold ( sound familiar?), due in November and loaded with Microsoft's mobile OS newcomer Windows Phone 7.

ENGADGET: HTC Gold with Windows Phone 7 in November, and more from a rumored UK roadmap leak

If Android is not free, Apple, Google and Microsoft will dominate the smart phone OS. The mobile OS licenses alone could create another Microsoft!

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Android and iOS account for a combined 85% of the market but the near-duopoly could break in the coming years, with Microsoft making a reinvigorated assault on the mobile space with its Windows Phone 8 OS. But with Microsoft going with Qualcomm as the sole supplier of chipsets for WP8 handsets, Qualcomm has that base covered as well.

FORBES: Qualcomm Looks To Bolster Chipset Business With Sharp Investment

Case in point is Windows Phone, as Microsoft has just announced that it's adopted traffic information from Nokia into the Maps app of its mobile OS. In addition to providing Windows Phone users in the US with more detailed overviews of traffic flows and congestion, the functionality will soon become available for many cities across the globe.

ENGADGET: Microsoft and Nokia bring enhanced traffic data to Windows Phone, announce international plans

Geeksphone has already shipped more than 10, 000 devices tailored to run Firefox OS, the new web-based mobile phone platform coded by Mozilla, to developers.

FORBES: Developers Snapped Up Roughly 1,000 Firefox Phones In First Few Hours Of Availability

There is no "one size fits all" when it comes to mobile operating systems (OS) and the announcement by Microsoft of Windows Phone 8 will soon give customers another choice when shopping for a new Verizon Wireless smartphone.

ENGADGET: Verizon to offer Nokia Lumia 822 for $100 and HTC Windows Phone 8X for $200, both to go on sale by Thanksgiving