More and more rumors talk about Microsoft’s plans to roll out a centralized online database where all the applications for the Windows Mobile platform will be available. According to the recent reports, the Redmond giant is trying to regain its market share and become as popular as Apple became when it released the App Store for the iPhone.

The first report about the application marketplace came from The Wall Street Journal, which cites sources that are “close” to the matter. According to these sources, Microsoft plans to release the app marketplace along with the version 6.5 of Windows Mobile. The same sources cited by The Wall Street Journal stated that the new operating system will deal better with multimedia tasks and that it would “narrow the gap” between Windows-based smartphones and the iPhone.

However, before these rumors, the web had been filled with other reports about Microsoft’s further developments in the mobile device market. Last week, some tech websites reported that the company would release a smartphone sometime this year. A representative quickly replied that the company does not plan to “do a phone.”

Later last week, the company’s plans to release a cloud-based sync service were confirmed, as Microsoft’s website getskybox.com went online for a few hours, earlier than the company had initially planned to. According to the detailed info on the website, the service, now called My Phone, will give each user 200 MB of storage space.

The application will synchronize media and personal content on the phone with the user’s account on the web, such as pictures, videos, text messages and calendar appointments. A nice feature of My Phone is that the application will automatically synchronize content every day.