In a follow up to our  post from last night regarding some analyst predicting Microsoft slate failure we have a new research note from IDC stating that they believe that Microsoft could see success with Windows Phone 7 in 2011 – maybe.

Their caveat in the research note was that for Windows Phone 7 to grow into a success, the company will need to expand into CDMA-based networks as well as adding things like copy and paste.

“CDMA phones are expected to arrive in early 2011, ensuring that WP7 devices are available on all four U.S. carriers, thus helping increase device shipments,” Al Hilwa, an analyst with IDC, wrote in a Dec. 29 research note. “To bring the platform rapidly to a level of parity with other major mobile platforms, Microsoft will need to deliver several key features in the first quarter of 2011.”

Those features include multitasking support, copy-and-paste and increased hardware support for augmented reality applications such as business card scanning. “Down the road, Microsoft’s success will be measured by the speed at which it can broaden its country, carrier and device portfolios, and the pace of delivery of new capabilities in its software,” Hilwa wrote. In the meantime, “IDC believes that it will have a seat at the small table of the top two or three mobile application platform players in the next five years.”

via eWeek

Considering that Microsoft has already said that these particular items are on tap for the beginning of the year, (read: January) this must have been a really hard bit of research to come up with.

[Cross-posted at Winextra]