So the question is: Are Mobile Applications the next major growth segment of the software industry?

Apple and ATT are leading this charge with the iPhone and are spending millions positioning the phone as THE platform for personal applications, and oh you can call people too.  Based on recent statistics the iphone has over 85,000 applications and the AppStore claims they have downloaded over 2 Billion applications.  In September they were averaging 10 Million downloads each day!  All I can say is WOW!

Per the Yankee group 70% of these downloaded applications are games and about 40% are actually being paid for.   At this rate they expect this to be a $4.2 Billion Dollar industry by 2013.

A Microsoft spokesman recently projected that there will be 10 million mobile applications by the year 2020 and the that the market for mobile applications will be "as big as the internet".

We would love to hear from our readers about your opinion of this market.  I know it has grabbed our attention and is showing all the signs of being a huge growth opportunity for Software developers. Let us know what you think.