Latest smartphones set to unsettle the market

Smartphone wars have commenced with the announcement that the BlackBerry Torch 9800 will go on sale tomorrow - with the Windows Phone 7 and the Nokia N8 to be released in the UK shortly.

All three phones are designed to eat into the dominance of Apple's iPhone and Google's Android platform, as part of a fierce battle to gain market share in the highly lucrative hand-held devices market.

Whilst in the consumer space hand-held devices are becoming commoditised, in the business sector there is still money to be made with all the key players jostling for position by preparing to introduce new features all aimed at luring people away from Apple and Android devices.

The Windows Phone 7 which will allow users to edit SharePoint (Microsoft's web portal technology) documents on the move is an attractive feature for people who need access to documents whilst they work on the go.

However most of the new features of this phone are around consumer multi-media capabilities and consumer software applications linking the phone with Microsoft Live, Microsoft's consumer web platform.

Following the recent CEO change, Nokia is widely being viewed as a rising star in the market with its aggressive pricing which many experts believe will deliver considerable market share.