Windows Phone 7, meet Windows 8: cross platform apps could put Microsoft back in the game

In a move that could catapult Windows smartphones up the popularity ladder and back into contention, it has been suggested apps for Windows Phone 7 will run on computers equipped with the Microsoft Windows 8 operating system.

The news came from chip maker Nvidia’s chief executive Jen-Hsun Huang, who was talking to a round table of journalists including Cnet’s Roger Cheng. 

During the discussion, he talked up the advantages ARM PC processors had over Intel ones – namely that they are running on the same architecture many mobile phones now run on.

In the Cnet article, Huang goes on to say he believes apps that are written for the Microsoft Windows Phone 7 platform will be able to run on the desktop Windows 8 operating system, slated for release in the first quarter of 2012.

In many ways, this makes perfect sense. Microsoft is trying to make a play for a chunk of the tablet market – what better way to do so than to integrate its hugely popular Windows PC suite with a smartphone/tablet one?

It also helps explain why Microsoft is releasing a new operating system so quickly after Windows 7 – especially when that was received very positively. That and the fact it is desperate to get people to loosen their grip on Windows XP (which will only be supported until 2014, but millions still cling to it doggedly).

This should also put Microsoft one up on Apple – something of a rarity these days – unless Apple has something coming with iOS 5 that no one has managed to get to the rumour mill yet. While Apple’s products do integrate well with each other, it is yet to bridge the gap between Macs and ‘i’ devices in this way.

It is a natural and obvious step for apps to be cross platform, while it could also add pressure to the upcoming Google Chrome OS, that could well offer similar functionality with Android devices.