RIM's BlackBerry, Apple iPhone rule smartphone roost

Research in Motion's BlackBerry platform has a comfortable lead in U.S. smartphone market share with Apple's iPhone a solid No. 2, according to comScore data. Microsoft's Windows Mobile comes in third place.

The comScore data is notable as a contrast to the buzz-o-meter. For instance, RIM, which is sometimes portrayed as a has-been set to get pummeled by the iPhone, holds 41.6 percent of the smartphone market in the U.S. based on platform. Apple has 25.3 percent.

Simply put, RIM and Apple control a little more than two-thirds of the market. The real surprise might be Microsoft at No. 3. Windows Mobile has 18 percent share as of December 31. Sure that's down from 19 percent in September, but given that Windows Mobile has been lagging the field you'd think it would be much worse.

Also: RIM: BlackBerry sales solid

In fact, if Microsoft can do anything with Windows Mobile it can get back into the smartphone race.

The rest of the standings illustrate the tough road Palm faces. In September, the Palm platform had 8.3 percent market share. In December, Palm's share was 6.1 percent. That's a big decline in three months.

Meanwhile, Google's Android platform now has 5.2 percent market share, up from 2.5 percent in September.

Among the total mobile market---smartphones and dumb phones---the standings look like this:

And here's what folks do with their phones.