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Windows 10 Mobile Needs To Be Put Out of Its Misery (betanews.com)
From a column on BetaNews: It's time for Microsoft to pull the plug. Windows 10 Mobile has been on life support for a long time, and the software giant is only making things worse by not giving it the mercy killing it deserves. It may sound harsh, but there's no future for Windows on smartphones in its current state. Microsoft wants to keep the door open to future developments but, let's face it, when it decided to sell Samsung's new Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ through its stores it basically sealed its own platform's fate. There is no turning back from this. We know it and its fans know it too. [...] Really, the only reason I can see Microsoft developing Windows 10 Mobile -- or Windows on smartphones -- further is to give its fans the illusion that something could happen. One day. Someday. Eventually. Maybe. Hopefully. If all the stars align. And Apple and Google and all the other successful vendors are wiped out from the face of the Earth. Hey, it could happen!
Whether you personally enjoy your Microsoft phone or not, it makes absolutely no sense for Microsoft to keep trying to exist in a space in which they have proven that they cannot compete. It's just costing them money. They have always been shit at it, it has never made them any money, and it never will.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That's roughly what people have been saying since Windows CE. That Microsoft would *eventually*, *very soon* swoop in and eat everyone's lunch in the mobile computer space. And when *cough* *cough* analysts failed in their predictions, they claimed that Microsoft just put the project in the back burner for later. You just wait and see, next generation is going to be awesome.
The fact of the matter is that, since then, Nokia rose and fell, Blackberry dominated and then became a shell of its former self, the iPhone set the new standard for what a mobile device is supposed to "be" for a decade and beyond, Android spreads like a virus and people are putting tiny computers into watches that nobody wants or needs. Oh, and Apple removed the headphone jack.
Microsoft had plenty of opportunities to "do something about it", but all of their mobile products have been pretty half-assed so far.
This indicates that they don't really have a clue on how to tackle the mobile space.