If there are two main areas where Microsoft massively lags behind both Android and Apple it is market share and app availability.

Well, Microsoft has copped to its role as a “distant third” in the former capacity (Windows Phones represent less than a 5 percent share of the overall market), but is the latter something more immediately addressable?

Yes, according to a tweet posted by Windows Phone VP Joe Belfiore — the man responsible for the design and software product definition of Microsoft’s smartphones — who enthusiastically claims that the end of 2014 is going to mark the end of the “app-gap” between Windows Phones, and those available for Android and iOS platforms.

We're all gonna look back on the end of 2014 as the ending of the app-gap for Windows Phone. The 3rd ecosystem is decidedly here!

— Joe Belfiore (@joebelfiore) November 20, 2013

Of course, this is easier said than done. While it is theoretically possible for Microsoft to equal the number of apps seen on both iOS and Android platform, that means nothing if these are low quality, poorly-designed fart machines and the like.

App stores are, by their nature, “superstar” markets where the less interest there is in a particular platform, the harder it becomes to convince third-party developers to spend their time and effort developing for it.

And with that being the case, it then becomes harder to close the “app-gap” by convincing the masses to trade in their iPhone or Android device for a next-gen Nokia or similar.

If an app catalog falls in a Redmond, WA forest, does it make a sound?

• SourceTechradar