That's a good point rain bird, so I guess we will have to see

pretty sure Nokia suffered a 1.25 billion dollar loss still even after adopting to WP7, and their N9 still outsold WP7.

That's actually wrong... The nerds at development at my company are compaining about this... the Metro (that cool looking blocks interface) Apps are actually different then the normal desktop apps... they don't cross over nicely... so your gonna have 2 apps 1 for Metro and 1 for a normal desktop.. and trust me you really don't want to use a Metro App on your normal desktop.. I can't even use my mouse on the edge of the screen to scroll it.... there is like a freaking horizontal scrollbar on the bottom of the metro interface,

I should have worded it differently then. I meant that the Metro apps would be universal. Either way, I don't see how Metro apps doesn't work on desktops in terms of design, all the ones I've used have been fine.

And still Lumia 710 and Lumia 800 cost small fortune compared to Samsung Galaxy family...

$250 million actually isn't that much TBH.

Look at consoles. MS wanted to be in the space but in that case had to develop their own HW platform - something MS doesn't really want to do particularly IMHO. That cost billions and billions of investment to push MS into the living room with their OS and software standards.

Here, they are partnering with Nokia who are shouldering the platform end of the deal. $250 million a quarter (or whatever it turns out to be over time) is nothing compared to the kind of investment that went into the Xbox platform.

I like the OS but I remain doubtful MS and Nokia will succeed personally. I think they are too late to the party, that Apple and Android (across multiple brands) are too entrenched and that while they will for sure gain marketshare it will be nothing major in the end.

I could be wrong - but that's how it feels to me. Still, on the evidence so far MS isn't nearly having to spend what they might have had to in order to make the attempt - being lucky enough to have a more than willing partner in Nokia.

Well...it's sensible after the failures of buying Danger and developing Kin...

This is the year that the Windows Phone platform needs to lead from the starting blocks. Up until now it is tracking not to disimilar growth patterns to Apple and Android. The analysts views are a mixed bag but the fact that Nokia's shares held up and even increased on the news of the WP sales suggests they are more positive than pessimistic.

The signs are looking good with OEM share on the rise and the second and argueably more important phase of the launch the US and the rolling out to other key regions this year. Then you have iDC, Gartner and iSuppli all predicting Windows Phone to surpass Apple by 2015.

Finally lets throw WP8 and W8 in general into the mix and I think you begin to see that whatever individuals may think about WP itis unlikely to fail. Unlike the guy on the telly this morning trying to convince me that a 1 million £ bonus to a Government owned bank employee was "small beer" this money in relation to Microsoft and its goals probably is.

The deal looks just, people should be paid to use Windows. But why not paying directly end users? It looks like Nokia is gobbling all that money.
And I'm waiting for receiving back what I spent for Win ME, MS Works and Win 95 OSR2 too, as despite not bad as the first Win 95, the lack or insufficiency of the promised support for USB and AGP forced me to buy Win ME (I switched to Win 2k as soon as I could, but back then, before SP4, W2k was still crappy and lacked too many drivers too). So, MS, where's my money?

The latest market share numbers are in, and Nokia LOST market share when comparing Q4 2010, with Q4 2011. This is just like msft supporting HDDVD, by paying off toshiba and one of the studios. Pitiful