I would add that it looks like Microsoft had never considered WM to be a consumer phone: there were competing with RIM and Palm by throwing more enterprise-wort

I would add that it looks like Microsoft had never considered WM to be a consumer phone: there were competing with RIM and Palm by throwing more enterprise-worth features, not caring about UX in general (other than maintaining UI styling across applications) and letting hadware vendors ship any hardware that minimally does the job and saves vendors' money. With all due respect, Apple was in an unique position: they had underserved consumer market in front of them and right hardware became available (or the processes were advanced enough to accomodate Apple's requirements in system design). BTW, ever wonder why Apple doesn't ship LTE iPhone? The hardware quality is not there yet and LTE firmwares are still work in progress.