So is this swagger? Or does MS know a lot of things that we don't?

http://wmpoweruser.com/microsofts-internal-goal-is-to-sell-about-100-million-windows-phones-in-2012/

Quite predictable, Nokia users liked Symbian, Nokia should have stuck with it, obviously not dropping its development, or it should have chosen an OS less different form it.

And if MS is forced to slow one of WP's two strongest rivals using patent trolling, it means it cannot win just through its qualities.

A lot of people liked Nokia. But they liked it as it was, with Symbian on the smartphones and with the usual old, familiar Nokia interface on the not smart ones.

Boy, am I looking forward to revisiting this thread in June 2012. This is going to be a classic.

No. Nokia and WP7 is a good match and it will see WP7 market share climb, simply because there is a level of brand loyalty to Nokia handsets. I'm quite certain that once my sister moves to a smartphone it will be a Nokia WP7 device. Because she's not interested in buying anything but Nokia. Of course they will have to offer a non-touch screen, or at least a slide out keypad variety because she hates that touchscreen shit. Only way she'll go Android is if my FSM Wondoze hating brother convinces her to ditch one evil empire and sign up to the other evil empire.

What I think, though, is that MS has really tied itself to Nokia too strongly. They were both desperate to find a survival strategy in the smartphone market, so they cut a deal. But it's going to leave other handset makers feeling rather sour towards MS. They won't promote WP7 with quite the same enthusiasm as they will Android. And before you say "Motorola", the situation is different there. Android is already established as a strong platform across all the handset makers, and they know Google is not interested in playing favourites. Google's interest is in getting the Android OS into as many hands as possible, and playing favourites with their Motorola acqusition is not the way to do it. Also Google has had its own handset in the past and still given the 3rd parties their due.

So WP7 is assured a decent market share with Nokia, I think. But Android is set to dominate unless Google has a brain explosion. It's Google's game to lose at this point.

And if you bothered reading in to the matter, you wouldn't come off as someone just adding gasolune to a potential fire.

http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/Nov2011/nokia-lumia-800-sales-have-been-excellent.html

Even if one model isn't doing as bad as some state (but Nokia saying is doing wonders isn' exactly a neutral source), Nokia, when it still put more resources into Symbian, had a far larger market share. I won't try to say Nokia old UIs were the best, but Nokia users typically expected to find a certain family feeling that they'll hardly find in third party OS and interfaces, even if Nokia customizes them. Having secured the support of a huge HW producer will be surely good for WP, but maybe the deal won't be as good for Nokia, that used to be the market leader. It's undeniable that Symbian was rotting, lately, but letting it rot was Nokia's biggest mistake.

When Nokia has to come out and defend its product instead of the marketplace doing so, then, to me at least, something is wrong. The cool thing about living in a future, automated world, analysts can easily do channel checks to determine whether a products is doing well or not. You can easily cancel out the noise that is the companies PR spin.

MS Windows failed mobile platform + Nokia failed mobile platform = more mobile platform failures.

I've been short Nokia's stock since 2007 and its been a very profitable trade as the shares continually trade down to zero. Companies just make it too easy sometimes.

Well, I would consider buying one if it didn't look so hideous in design. The OS may be nice, but the design of that Lumia 800 sucks! Too boxy. It needs a more curvy design and better ergonomics.

You don't know what you're talking about.

Microsoft failed mobile platform is Windows Mobile which has been put to sleep. Windows Phone is a brand new platform that is a year old now and its been quite well reviewed by users and developers

Nokia failed mobile platform is Symbian and that has nothing to do with this phone.

You are essentially saying..."Chevy Crovette sucks because GM once owned Pontiac which failed"