Can you give us a realistic game plan that starts with the iPhone launch & WinMo6 and ends better? After iPhone excellent execution gets you failure, that's just the current state of the market.
They've made awesome deals with companies like HTC, even convincing HTC to pay them $15 for every Android phone they sell, etc.
They've pretty much got Nokia on lockdown almost exclusively WinPhone7.
"They've made awesome deals with companies like HTC, even convincing HTC to pay them $15 for every Android phone they sell, etc."
Suing hardware companies like HTC is not "convincing" them of anything. It's strong arming them using "software patents" (aka. patented math) because they realized they were losing. I believe I read somewhere that microsoft makes more money from suing manufacturers over Android than they make on their own mobile platform/software. Seriously... WTF kind of business plan is that?
Can't innovate and make something amazing? Just sue the company that does!
1. Start working on the reboot immediately, rather than dismissing the iPhone as a fad for over a year.
2. Include at least some source-level backwards-compatibility so existing developers don't have to start over from scratch, even though the foundation is changing.
3. Be nicer to your existing OEMs (early OS access/input, wider hardware support, skip royalties for a year or two, etc.)
1-3 are just about cutting off the next potential disruption (which, in this case, turned out to be Android) off at the pass. To be successful in mobile, Microsoft didn't have to beat the iPhone. They just needed to defend their position against everything else, which they spectacularly failed to do. There's also:
4. Don't buy Skype or if you do, give up on carriers and work on direct-to-consumer (and direct-to-business) "Skype smartphones" using data-only SIMs.
A realistic game plan would be for Microsoft to immediately recognize iPhone as a threat and immediately start improving or rewriting WM6, just like Google did with Android.
Remember, Android looked more or less like WM6 and Symbian before the iPhone was introduced, and you can hardly call Android a failure today. Basically, Android is exactly where Microsoft would have loved to be with WP7, but it's pretty much not going to happen now unless they pull a bunny out of a hat with WP8.
They've made awesome deals with companies like HTC, even convincing HTC to pay them $15 for every Android phone they sell, etc.
They've pretty much got Nokia on lockdown almost exclusively WinPhone7.