First of all Ballmer never said WP7 is "struggling" so the article is reaching for words. Its not grabbing marketshare but a lot of exciting things are happening in MS's mobile division these days.
Secondly it would be a huge mirracle for WP7 to grab any significant marketshare as the phones just arent that great in specs or imaginative in design. The phone OS has an excellent foundation, but it lacks features it really shouldn't be lacking. Next update should fix that though... Also each carrier would be lucky to have 1 or 2 WP7 phones going against 10 Androids and the iPhone. You can do the math how that is going to turn out.
"Not really a surprise considering that Android, Blackberry, and iphones have a better os and a bigger app store. :)"
Good app store and Blackberry don't belong in the same sentance. And last time I checked WP7 app store is growing as fast as the iPhone did when it launched, and much faster than androids. 25000 apps in 8 months... Not tooo shabby.
"A duh, Sony had the common sense to partner with a runner up but MS is just not going to get anywhere "
Sony didn't "partner" with anyone. They grabbed a free copy of Android and off they went making phones. Luckily for the OEMs like Sony and HTC, Android and Windows phone OS exist as they would be absolutely murdered by Apple if they had to come up with an operating system for their phones themselves. Only HP/Palm and maybe Nokia would stand a chance against Apple without Android and WP7 OS.
"Wasn't this quite expected by most analysts. I would expect Nokia to help it a bit, but not for it to overtake RIM for 3rd any time soon "
Not sure I agree. RIM will be out of the picture within a few years, not cause of WP but cause of Android and iPhone. Or they will pick up Android and sail that ship themselves. They just don't have a chance compeeting anymore. They don't have access to best tech, best screens, best features and the business crowd is moving away from RIM and fast. I live in Canada, RIMs home turf...and no one wants a Blackberry here any more.
