Google has currently no plans to make its popular apps - Gmail, Google Drive, Google Translate, Google Maps - available to Microsoft's Windows 8 Phone smartphones. The product management director at Google Apps, Clay Bavor said, in an interview with V3, that: "We are very careful about where we invest and will go where the users are but they are not on Windows Phone or Windows 8...If that changes, we would invest there, of course."

Google's statement comes at a time where Microsoft says it has been overwhelmed by the response from developers approached to create applications for both its Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 operating systems.

"With the holidays rapidly approaching, I wanted to confirm that the Windows Phone Store will be open for business during the holiday timeframe. Since the launch of Windows Phone 8 in late October, we are experiencing a sustained 40% increase in Windows Phone app submissions. To meet this increase in app submission volume and maintain our certification processing turnaround times for developers, we will have our full staff on-hand throughout the holiday period," Senior Director for Mobile Platform Services Product Management at Microsoft Todd Brix wrote at the Windows Phone developer blog.