The App Ecosystems were too developed by the time Windows Phone arrived. I think they should have either (a) added the ability to run APKs in a well optimized emulator or (b) spent literal billions getting app developers to compile Windows versions.
That's for sure. Still, I held on to my Nokia for longer than I would have thought. Ultimately, I needed the Didi taxi app to have any decent chance of hailing a taxi in Beijing, so switched back to an iPhone. My MIL then got it and used it until she broke it.
We talked about all those things in Microsoft at the time. Even the running android app solution, which I might have been roped in to work on if it wasn't shot down. The reasoning being that "running android apps would discourage people from writing WP apps", which wasn't wrong. My feeling on this is that Microsoft was just way too late, you need the right thing at the right time.
