Ironically, the patent licensing machinations have probably hastened Windows Phone's demise. IIRC at the time MS was making _billions_ (or at least hundreds of

Ironically, the patent licensing machinations have probably hastened Windows Phone's demise. IIRC at the time MS was making _billions_ (or at least hundreds of millions) off Android, more than Google itself. At some point MS execs must have thought, "why the hell do we need a phone that can't run Youtube"? It took some time for WP to die, but die it did, and I'm pretty sure it would not have died if succeeding in the mobile market was the only way to make money on mobile for MS. They would have poured billions into it, and it would take off. With the patents letting them suck the massive teat of Android they really had no skin in the game. I worked at Google at the time, and I joked that if Apple were to go out of business and iPhones became unavailable, I'd have to go with a Windows phone. It was only partly a joke. WP had the consistency that Android never did, and never will have, and it had fluid, polished user experience even on the very low end.