Under the fantastic headline "The Hail Mary pass is now in the air", Tech Republic's Jason Hiner argues that two of the big reasons that Windows Phone did not gain a larger market share in 2011 are now solved, and that if 2012 doesn't deliver in America, they won't be able to blame it on the handset hardware or carrier support.

If sales of the Nokia Lumia 900 and HTC Titan II are disappointing then it’s unlikely that any of these other hardware builders will jump on the WP7 bandwagon. So, in a very real sense, it’s crunch time for Windows Phone. Microsoft has made some big moves, signed up some big partners, and now it will have to wait and see how the market responds. The Hail Mary pass is in the air. It’s entirely possible that it will be caught in the endzone for a touchdown. But, let’s not forget that it’s still a Hail Mary.

You could argue that Microsoft needed 2011 to provie it was in the game and get everything lined up (such as the Mango update), but Hiner is right. The next twelve months will need to deliver for the ecosystem.