"They will be innovative handsets and promise to deliver a phenomenal user experience."
It seems to me there isn't any innovation to really speak of here. Metro doesn't offer anything "better", and things aren't any faster. Integration with SkyDrive and Windows Live? Most people I know don't talk about either service. Seems like Hotmail is where people go to set up spam catcher accounts, and SkyDrive .. well, no one ever TALKS about it. It's just there. Nothing WOW (even though it is 25GB for free) about it. There's no apps yet. There was confusion over whether there will be a Skype app on it. That speaks volumes as to the direction of the platform and the division inside Microsoft. They are failing at this.
They are so late to the game, with 700,000+ Android activations per day..that's eating up a huge chunk of the market. Where do they fit?
The only logical thing I can see is them driving the price down, selling it a "feature phone+" and catering to the budget crowd. Because of their licensing model for software and processors, they have historically priced themselves higher than they should, but they can't really compete with iOS or Android right now.
As an example, I saw a Nokia commerical the other day. I recognized the Metro interface, but right now couldn't tell you the name of the phone, and don't recall them touting the OS as anything special. With the other two, you hear both about the hardware and the OS.
Long story short, Microsoft and Nokia have to come up with a better marketing plan to make a bigger impact. If not, they are DOA - which is what I feel most people think anyway.
