For ages we have been taking the micky out of Steve Ballmer for stuffing up Microsoft's lead in the mobile market and surrendering ground to a toymaker like Apple.

However buried in yesterday's Pew Internet report, "Understanding the Participatory News Consumer” it appears that Ballmer has cleared a way to score a future goal. The survey indicated that more than half of US consumers already get news and other real-time information wirelessly via laptops. This is a field which Steve still has a lot of control.

When Ballmer's boys release Windows 7 for the Mobile it is likely to improve the links between the desktop and the the PC. Not only making the OS more attractive for business but also for those who want news on the move. It is starting to look like Windows 7 will be able to mimic a lot more PC behaviour on a mobile and thus Steve can use established behaviour on the desktop and put it onto mobile by offering similar capabilities.

Consumers should be able to sync capabilities and their behaviour from mobile Windows desktop to Windows Phone. "On-the-go-news consumers" are a better demographic for Redmond than say the iPhone user. According to Pew Internet: "The typical on-the-go news consumer is a white male, age 34, who has graduated from college and is employed full-time." It is the same demographic which is likely to buy a bleeding edge phone.

Apple's demographic is much younger and less interested in news or anything other than shiny objects and listening to Coldplay.