Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer had gone on stage at the ReMIX conference in France to announce the company’s ambitious goal of selling 30 million smartphones loaded with the next-generation Windows Phone 7 operating system. In comparison, in 2007 Apple had announced its plan to sell 10 million iPhones, which it had exceeded.

The 30 million Windows Phone 7 sales goal is especially ambitious considering the company’s declining market share and consumer interests in a broad array of platforms, including iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, and Symbian. In 2008, Microsoft had announced 20 million Windows Mobile devices sold; in the first quarter of this year, that number is just 3.7 million.

Another important challenge that Windows Phone 7 will have at the onset of launch is that the platform is new with no backward compatibility for older and existing devices. Additionally, apps will have to be ported and Microsoft will need to woo developers to develop using Silverlight and XNA Studio.

(via: Mobile Tech World)