Verizon plans big Windows Phone push for the holidays

Verizon Wireless chief financial officer Fran Shammo said the company is looking to market a third mobile platform to help develop a strong competitor to Apple and Google. That operating system will be Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Phone 8. “We’re really looking at the Windows Phone 8.0 platform because that’s a differentiator. We’re working with Microsoft on it,” Shammo said in an interview with Reuters following the company’s earnings call on Thursday. The carrier expects to have Windows Phone 8-powered handsets in time for the 2012 holiday shopping season. The executive suggested that Verizon could play a similar role in helping Microsoft’s platform to grow as it did with Google’s Android OS