And that was basically what allowed iOS and Android to flourish. Microsoft already had an established platform with the PocketPC lineage (damn it, Opera Mobile

And that was basically what allowed iOS and Android to flourish. Microsoft already had an established platform with the PocketPC lineage (damn it, Opera Mobile originated on such devices!) and yet they dropped that like hot potato once the media started yakking about iPhones. You would have thought that Microsoft of all companies understood the value of platforms, having maintained Win32 compatibility for a decade already at that point. Similarly Nokia bought Trolltech for their Qt UI toolkit, because it would allow software to be developed that could be compiled for both Maemo and Symbian. But before that could be put into effect, the board panicked and brought in Elop (in large part because of American pension funds, apparently).