Earlier today Jeff Blankeburg made a blog post about hostility towards windows phone 7. Instead of commenting on his blog I decided to share my thoughts with everyone.
Kin
No Question MS dropped the ball here. I think most were surprised when it was announced and then surprised when it was yanked. The lifetime of Kin was so short that I doubt it will make a large impact over time. People talk about it now because it's somewhat recent news. Give it a few months and most will forget it.
Market Size
I've seen some comments suggesting that the game is over because Apple and Google own the market. I've seen those same comments when Android came out saying that Apple owned the market. There's no question that Apple's timing to market was excellent. There was a void and they filled it first. Their leadership position has taken a hit from Google and with their less than stellar execution of the iPhone 4 launch. There is no question in my mind that there is room in the market for MS. Both by taking share away from Apple and Google and because it's an expanding market. I see WM7 taking share away from both, but time will tell.
Development
I am a .NET developer so I am biased on this one. In my opinion the developer story here is the clincher for MS. I have toyed with development on the iPhone and was very disappointed. I have no interest in managing memory anymore. It's time to move on and Apple's holding on to an anchor with their outdated development tools and languages. The low friction development environment that MS offers will make it so much easier to build apps that we will see a lot of developers on the platform.
Conclusion
In the end I feel MS will do well because they fit between the iPhone and Android. iPhone has a walled garden that enforces a level of application quality but has a price to pay with the development tools and languages. Android has a better development model but is so open that consumers loose confidence in the quality of applications. WM7's model enforces a level of application quality with a low entry price for developers. If, and this is a big if, MS can market WM7 as well as they have the XBOX then they will have a place in this game.