Re: 'Nokia has started to deliver very attractive products again'
The jury is still out on that, and we'll only know in a year or two's time.
But what if MS see retail buyers as secondary to business users? IN MS shoes, yes I'd want to have something shiney to put in the shops to sell retail, but the real long term value is not through shop sales to individuals, but through getting business users on board. Eat the lunch that RIM used to enjoy, take back business users from Android, sell related services, reduce the corporate traction of other platforms.
Most corporate IT buyers don't care about apps. They want a decent mobility solution based on phone, email, text, maybe IM. A few built in fripperies like mobile internet and navigation are welcome, but third party apps count for nothing. They want t it to be secure, play nicely with the existing IT infrastructure.
A mid to low end smartphone with MS software really ought to do that, and if few retail users buy it, does that matter? I wouldn't buy a WP8 phone, but of far more importance to MS is whether my employers would buy 10,000 of them.