ReadWriteWeb

The highly-anticipated update to Microsoft's fledgling mobile operating system, code-named "Mango," is now known as "Windows Phone 7.5." Despite the company's determination to keep the number under wraps, leaks have emerged both during sessions at Microsoft's recent MIX 11 developer conference and now, via a website on Microsoft's Partner Network.

The version number indicates that Mango, as we already know, is a large enough update to warrant a change in version numbers. However, going forward, the Windows Phone platform will no longer include the number. Confused?

We're starting to see the evolution of the platform and what it represents. I'd argue that the platform metaphor is far more resonating than the idea of the private cloud. A platform can be used inside, outside or in both the enterprise data center and a public cloud environment. It removes the oxymoron that makes the private cloud idea so nonsensical. Why would a cloud be called private if at the same time the service is as much about leveraging infrastructure outside the enterprise, too? And don't start with the hybrid talk. We're talking platforms. Isn't that easier to process than these mixed up terms that have the power to do nothing else except confuse people?

Jive and Salesforce.com have been seen as competitors since at least the announcement of Chatter, which brought Salesforce.com into the enterprise 2.0 market. Jive has also started to encroach on Salesforce.com territory by announcing its Jive Apps Market, a competitor to the Salesforce.com AppExchange and Force.com platform.

But now, Appirio is making the two vendors' services work in harmony.

Asana is a company created by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and ex-Googler Justin Rosenstein. Its aim is nothing short of reinventing how we collaborate. It's a lofty goal, especially with so many Enterprise 2.0 tools aiming to do just that. But it has deep pockets, high profile advisers, a strong vision and lots of buzz.

The team has been toiling on the project in secret for two years, but have finally started talking about it over the past few months. In February, the company held an open house where Rosenstein demoed and explained the product. It's currently in private beta, but don't hold your breath waiting for an invite.

Here's what you should know about the company and its product.

We've recently watched as companies like Jive and Salesforce.com have shifted focus to become platform-centric companies. Social software, CRM and other products are becoming less important than platform-as-service and enterprise app stores for many companies. But what's going to run on these platforms?

"We don't want to be the Facebook of the enterprise, we want to be the Zynga," says co-CEO of Rypple Daniel Debow. Considering the role gamification is playing in Rypple's development, he may mean that in more way than one. Rypple is a software-as-a-service for employee feedback. Staff can give each other feedback and managers can coach their employees and manage goals.

Last night, Jive Software released its Jive Apps SDK to developers. For Jive, this isn't just an SDK release: it's the beginning of a new direction. Jive assigned twice as many developers to building its application platform and Jive Apps Market as it did to developing the previous release of Jive. And that's an indication not just of where Jive is going as a company, but where the enterprise software market seems to be headed. Salesforce.com made it clear last week that it is now a platform company vendor first and a SaaS company second. Companies such as Jive, Salesforce.com and Google are not just trying to copy the success of app stores in the consumer market, but create a whole new paradigm for enterprise software.

Who will win the smartphone race and how will they get there? Who will end up controlling the user experience on the device - the manufacturers or the operating system makers? These were the sort of questions being discussed on a panel at the Open Mobile Summit in San Francisco last week. On hand were several executives from device makers themselves, including HTC, Samsung and Motorola.

The family is talking about turkey again. That must mean it's time for reflection and to look ahead to the next 12 to 18 months.

In that spirit, here is part one of a two part series on trends in the enterprise. What's evident in all of these trends is the role data is playing in how technologies are evolving. Is it the megatrend of the next decade?

In all of this, we think about the way people work these days. We have multiple mobile phones. We work in offices and homes. For many people, working is anywhere they can find a flat surface for their laptops or for that matter just finding a signal for their smartphone.

Email is old fashioned, right? Not so fast - that rich source of data about your personal connections and interests is finally emerging as a platform for some really innovative services.

Yesterday we saw the launch of Gmail's new Priority Inbox, which automatically sorts inbound messages by priority. That's something we've been expecting since hints of it emerged 18 months ago. This Spring, Gmail began offering secure, programatic access permission for the contents of your inbox - a move we said heralded a new era of inbox applications. Now we're finally seeing that flood of services emerge. Here are three of the best new email apps that you don't want to miss. Following screenshots and a screencast, we discuss what it all means and how these are just the beginning of the coming era of email as a platform.

San Francisco-based micro-blogging service Posterous launched a marketing campaign back in June that raised a few eyebrows across the Web for its apparently brazen approach. The company has been rolling out new tools since the beginning of the campaign aimed at helping new and existing users transplant their data onto Posterous from other services - services it referred to as "dying platforms." Today, the campaign came to a close with the release of the company's final switch tool for the behemoth blogging platform, Wordpress.