You can take Flexion's decision to expand its wrapper technology – which packages up monetisation solutions such as try before you buy and in-app purchases in one handy tool – to Windows Phone in two ways.

Firstly, it's a sign of Flexion's growth, and it's attempt to expand to new platforms to mop up more and more developers.

Secondly, however, it's evidence of increasing interest from studios in Microsoft's platform as its next major update – Windows Phone 8 – looms large.

But what exactly can Flexion bring to the table for studios already making their way on Microsoft's platform, and just what does the Redmond giant need to do to join iOS and Android at the top table?

We quizzed Flexion CEO Jens Lauritzson for answers.

Pocket Gamer: What motivated you to add support for Windows Phone at this stage?

Jens Lauritzson: We try to support all the big platforms that our partners want to use and the market support for the Windows Phone 8 meant that this was a natural next platform for us.

We also believe that the market needs a third major platform to give the ecosystem some balance and from what we have seen so far, the Windows Phone product will have a very good chance of becoming that third force.

Developers have typically found selling their games on Microsoft's platform rather harder going than on the likes of iOS. Do you think Flexion can aid such problems?

iOS was unique - and still is - in the sense that it had a large iTunes subscriber base when it launched and it could offer its developers good terms and consumers one-click-buy.

I think Windows Phone Marketplace has suffered from the same lack of monetisation methods as many other stores - a cumbersome registration process followed by a credit card only payment option.

On top of that the volumes have been quite small in comparison with other competing platforms.

When a developer chooses a marketing strategy, they look at where they can get good return on their investment and Windows Phone apps cost as much as any other platform to develop for, but have generated less revenue; hence the limited support for the OS in the past.

Flexion will be able to help developers with enabling good monetisation methods on Windows Phone - global operator billing, virtual currency and free-to-play - without requiring any changes to their products.

Bringing operator billing to the store with attractive pricing or licensing models will be critical for the success of the Windows Phone Store. This is one area where we can help.

Will you tap into Microsoft's existing in-app purchase structure, or is this your own solution?

Our wrapper is an enabling solution which requires no effort from the developer unlike SDKs.

We will offer Microsoft in-app billing alongside our own monetisation models because it will give consumers more choice and it will be up to the user to decide how they pay. We are currently doing the same for Google Play, where we will be able to offer 'try and buy' using Google Checkout.

With the advance of freemium releases, do you think free trials still have a role in game promotion?

We have been preaching the freemium model for years. For us, try and buy is just one form of freemium.

In our opinion, the success of freemium is mainly due to the increased distribution and penetration that it offers compared with the PPD (pay per download) model. It has become much easier for consumers to try games free and then decide if they like them or not.

By offering free gaming more people will play and once you get them playing they will decide if they want to pay our not. Whether this is for an in-game item or for the whole game, this is just a commercial decision.

In certain markets 90 percent of all purchases fail due to low credit. With the PPD model those consumers would have been lost. However with in-app billing they can simply top up and come back since the game is already on the device.

The second major impact of freemium and in-app billing is the recurring revenues it generates.

Flexion generates recurring revenues through pay-per-use models instead of in-game items and our revenues grow with an increase in the user-base. Our experience is that two-thirds of people who decide to pay prefer to buy and the remaining one-third rent.

Our focus is on increasing conversion from free to paid. Today our average conversion is around 10 percent.

Freemium models that rely on purchases of in-game items have a much lower conversion rate and need roughly 10 times the volumes or to keep gamers active 10 times longer than a full purchase customer. Each consumer has different preferences and we want to capture the broadest possible user-base.

We do this by offering additional models such as incentivised or free-to-play models.

The problem with the PPD model was that it was the only available model for many years and hence the market for mobile games remained small. We don't believe that one model fits all consumers and we try to cater for the broadest possible target group.

High spending freemium users are a pretty small user group, and it will remain attractive for some developers but not all.

What form has your partnership with Nokia taken?

Nokia is an important partner of ours and we already provide their developers with try and buy in the Nokia Store.

Now that Nokia is investing in the Windows Phone, we want to support their developers on this new platform too. However, the same goes for most of our other carrier and OEM partners. Flexion is a cross-platform enabling solution and as such it is our ambition to support all OSes.

How important do you think Nokia has been for Windows Phone's growth to date?

Nokia is very important for the Windows Phone and we believe this is what will help Microsoft finally put the OS on the map.

When the biggest OEM in the world puts its weight behind a platform you have to take it seriously, and Nokia together with Microsoft will have the biggest developer community. It remains to be seen whether they can make the ecosystem developer friendly.

One key success factor will be to keep the ecosystem as open as possible.
Thanks to Jens for his time.

You can find out more about Flexion on the firm's website.