I doubt it would have succeeded. The latent associations with the unreliable and bloated Windows CE was too strong which had a halo effect — the vibe was that M

I doubt it would have succeeded. The latent associations with the unreliable and bloated Windows CE was too strong which had a halo effect — the vibe was that Microsoft tried to shoehorn Windows into mobile devices where it doesn’t really work. It wasn’t until later than Windows Phones came out but the association with Windows was just too strong. I owned a Nokia Lumia and to be honest it was an ok experience with the tiles and everything but the iPhone just felt so much more polished as a consumer device. The Windows branding was a liability to be honest. Microsoft’s design language felt too corporate and if you look at any of their OS interfaces today they’re just so uncool. Smart phones are lifestyle devices and being too corporate is a liability. (Unless you’re BlackBerry but somehow there’s a coolness to the BlackBerry branding — even Obama used one. I doubt he would have used a Windows phone. )