... Google will send you apple fanbois back to 2001 - angry and resentful
... uh! wait
and heading towards what most people dislike about the iPhone (single marketplace)
I don't think "most people dislike" this, Nerdfest. I realize it's a fairly common sentiment here on Slashdot, but most people have different priorities.
Maybe their doing what Linus Torvalds did with Git, in reversing every decision that CVS made
The thing is, Microsoft just isn't that talented. I don't mean they don't have talented employees, but that the way the company works, talent just doesn't enter into it. What they do, what they've always done, is copy what others have done, and unlike Apple who, when they copy they make things better (that's what "good artists copy, great artists steal" means), MS copies poorly. The first few iterations are atrocious. But eventually they copy things so thoroughly that, what the hell, it's good enough, right?
Technologically, MS has always been behind the curve. Macs, Amigas, OS/2. All made Windows (and DOS!) look pathetic. But price and hardware support, along with some horrible, but effective, business tactics won out.
And it looks like MS is trying the same here, but without the ability to engage in the same old business tactics, and without the sort of market where price and hardware support is as important as it was during the PC era. So, like you said, I just don't see how this will work out well for them. They can't out-class iPhone, or out-geek Android, and they can't tie their monopoly to it.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see. MS has a way of sticking around with technically inferior offerings. It's like a gambler with enough money to keep doubling down. You don't have to win right away, you just have to win somewhere along the line. MS doesn't have the burden of caring about whether their products are good, they just want them to sell, and they have the money and the will to stick around until they do. They'll keep "reinventing" their products (WinCE to Windows Mobile to Windows Phone 7, with Zune and Kin thrown in for good measure) until something sticks.