John Furrier asks the question over on Forbes "Who's Behind the Resurgence of Windows Phone?" Looking at some recent announcements and movement, from IDC's predictions to third party ad network support, he believes that Windows Phone is ready to start a period of growth, alongside the Xbox and Windows 8 platforms.

As we've discussed here before, much of this is Microsoft's long term strategy of building a consistent ecosystem through a range of products.

Similar to Google, Microsoft’s pooling a strategy around its existing products, from game consoles to office software. And similar to Apple’s strategy, Microsoft is streamlining its OS around a narrow device lineup, connecting everything in the cloud. The payoff is already predicted to hit in 2016, when IDC expects Windows Phone to overtake Apple iOS as the second-most dominant mobile platform in the market. And taking a look at some recent developments from Microsoft, IDC’s prediction may be onto something.

SkyDrive is one of the ways Microsoft is joining its ecosystem together.

You can read the full editorial from Furrier over on Forbes.