46% of Enterprise IT departments plan to support Windows Phone 7 in 2011

The Enterprise Mobility Foundation, Strategy Analytics and FierceMobileIT conducted a survey of 250 small, medium and large businesses on their enterprise mobility strategy and came away with some interesting information.

The most important finding is that no single mobile operating system will dominate, with business settling on at least four different mobile platforms: Android, BlackBerry, iPhone and Windows Phone 7, with companies will increasingly rely on users bringing in their own smartphones.

Good news for Windows Phone 7 is that 15% of businesses already support the OS, and this support will triple to 46% in 2011.

With smartphones increasingly belonging to end users rather than the business, enterprises also have to be increasingly flexible regarding the devices being used for personal use, mainly social networking, which are top on the list of apps end users want, and which is fortunately also a strong point of Windows Phone 7, which is trying for a good balance between work and play.

Windows Phone 7 is seen by some analysts as a threat to RIM’s Blackberry enterprise dominance, with Dell, if they ever get their troubled handset out of the door, planning to push their device and the OS as an enterprise mobility solution for their mainly business clients.

Read more on the survey at Fiercemobileit.com