Windows 8 phone

Dan Francis said:

Even if W8 was better, it's not catching on and likely will not last. Microsoft believes their name is enough, when it certainly isn't.

I don't think they think that way at all.  MS knows they are coming from behind and have made some major strategic mistakes like sticking with Windows Mobile for too long.  Maybe they thought that the Windows desktop interface would be so familiar to users that they would demand it on their phones too.  Probably some did, but most didn't.  Wrong bet. 

IMO, it's more a problem with poor organisational dynamics, marketing and timing.

1. Product design was good followed by lots of positive reviews.  Elements of its design language have been followed by both iOS and Android. 
2. Lots of exclusive telco deals meant that many handsets were not available to users.  I wonder if a telco independent marketing strategy would have worked.  AFAIK, the trouble is every telco has to "approve" a handset before it can be used on their network and if you're not in their good books you can be sent to the back of the queue.
3. When WP7 was first launched, MS worked with various product teams that almost seemed to work independently from and competitively with each other.  Thus WP7 was based on a different foundation from that of the rest of the MS family of products.  Changing that meant creating WP8 and its incompatibility with the previous version.  MS should have softened the blow with something like a discount voucher for anyone who traded in their WP7 handset.  If there's anything that ran against MS' usual ethos, it was this lack of loyalty to its cohort of early adopters.  On Windows, MS has strived to maintain backwards compatibility with previous versions of its OS for this reason.
4. Acquiring Nokia meant a stutter in the flow of new handsets for almost six months to a year, hence the fall in market share as consumers thrive on continual and fast paced progress.  The release dates between flagship phones 920 (Nov 2012)-->930 (Jul 2014) of 20 months is way too long. 
5. The advertising campaigns are awful.  They don't show points of difference.  They don't explain why Windows Phone is better.  Both Samsung and Apple seem to outspend MS on advertising.

Anyway, MS have shown repeatedly that if they can hang in there and constantly refine their product, they can reach parity if not ascendancy in a product category.  Interesting examples, include DOS, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, XBox, and SharePoint.  The SmartPhone category and its relation to everyday computing is just too strategically important a category to pass up, so I think MS has no choice, but to keep soldiering on. 

In the meantime, I'm enjoying the use of my Windows Phone but sadly without a Logos app.  I tried using Biblia which does give access to my library but network latency makes it painful to use.