Honestly I'm beginning to not stand Paul Thurrott. He's all doom & gloom and not very intelligent. Zune failed because it was a music-only platform in an age where you had to be a full phone+cloud platform which is what Windows Phone is. Zune was not worth fighting for, WP is. I sure as **** am glad that the Windows Phone division is not infected with defeatists like Thurrott. Maybe he should just get himself an iPhone already.
Honestly I'm really enjoying the platform. In less then 2 weeks I've already installed about 20 apps. I'm really enjoying "Angry Birds" and "Grow". I never thought it possible, but suddenly I want to have XBox achievements! I love the Amazing Weather app, the Me/People hubs, Local Scout and the general look of the UI. I love the lockscreen and how it PWNS iOS lockscreen. So let's have 3-cheers for a innovative platform and not listen anymore to the doom & gloom crowd.
Respectfully (and not that I am a huge Thurrott fan), I might have to disagree on the "not intelligent" comment. I'm not sure what a person has to do to rate, but...
Here's a list of the books he has published
Windows NT 5.0 Networking.
"Delphi 3 Superbible". March 1997. ISBN 1571690271.
"Unlocking Active Server Pages". June 1997. ISBN 1562057529.
"Implementing Microsoft Visual InterDev". September 1997. ISBN 1566047447.
"VBScript for the World Wide Web (Visual QuickStart Guide)". October 1997. ISBN 0201688921.
"Cascading Style Sheets: A Primer". November 1997. ISBN 1558285792.
"SELECT: Projects for Visual Basic 6.0". March 1999. ISBN 0201611937.
"Visual InterDev 6 Unleashed". April 1999. ISBN 067231262X.
Great Digital Media with Windows XP. September 2001. ISBN 0764536206.
Windows XP Home Networking. November 2004 (2nd edition). ISBN 0764578162.
Microsoft Windows XP Power Toolkit (with Walter Bruce and David Chernicoff). August 2002. ISBN 8120322738.
Windows Vista Secrets (with Brian Livingston). 2007. ISBN 0764577042.
Windows Vista Secrets SP1 Edition. October 2008. ISBN 0470242000.
Windows 7 Secrets (with Rafael Rivera). September 2009. ISBN 0470508418.
Windows Phone 7 Secrets. November 2010. ISBN 0470886595.
Upcoming Windows 8 Secrets
I would also mention that he actually knows people on that Windows Phone team and is certainly more well connected to the behind the scenes pulse than most. He called the Zune and Kin demise well in advance...as well as changes to Office, Hotmail, Live, and Skydrive etc..etc..
Just saying =p