It’s been a while—at least eight years, since Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) launched the first version of its operating system for mobiles, but it took the entry of Apple’s iPhone into the market to get the software giant serious about pursuing mobile consumers, and not just business users. Businessweek has a lengthy feature covering Microsoft’s latest attempts to lure consumers to its mobile products. It’s concentrating on improving the browsing experience—as signaled by its recent licensing deal with Adobe (NSDQ: ADBE) to embed Flash Lite in its Windows Mobile platform, as well as its February acquisition of Danger, which makes a mobile web browser, as well as social networking and instant messaging applications. It’s also trying to make its platform more user-friendly, which one analyst complained had a “clunky interface,” and was “too much Windows and not enough mobile.” Finally, if Microsoft does succeed in snaring Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), its efforts to make its mobile offering consumer-friendly could get a real boost with the integration of Yahoo’s Go platform, and its “One” mobile products. OneSearch, its mobile search application, now reaches some 600 million people worldwide. 

Microsoft is not alone in its pursuit of the mobile consumer. Blackberry-maker RIM (NSDQ: RIMM), too, wants to broaden its appeal beyond business workers. It recently agreed a deal with Puretracks, a Toronto-based digital music provider, to provide it with a music service, as well as signed on Will.i.am’s social network Dipdive. Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), meanwhile, is going in the other direction, hoping to get more office workers and announcing more enterprise-friendly version of firmware and security enhancements.