Re: Is Microsoft's "business approach" working-out well for Mobile?
History:
Sometime during the last two years, WCentral started reporting on MS' "retrenchment strategy", meaning MS was focusing their MOBILE efforts on the ENTERPRISE and abandoning consumers. The reporting implied MS was going to market W10M based smartphones to corporations. That's what most of us understood anyway. I know a few people in these forums who never really believed that, or at least felt it sounded fishy (including yours truly) but even if it was true, it was not true for very long. Rather than trying to market smartphones to corporations, as the reporting implied, MS gave up on smartphones entirely. If that wasn't always the plan, then it at least became the plan very early on in the "retrenchment phase".
The present:
There is no plan to popularize W10M smartphones with corporations. Period. Whether through OEMs or directly. Since there is no plan that involves smartphones, MS' smartphone plan isn't failing and there is also nothing for MS to realize. It's us that hasn't yet fully realized what is happening!
And guess what? The surface "phone" won't be called a phone (edit: although it will have cellular functionality)! Even if it is phablet sized, it will not be marketed as a phone. However, whatever we end up calling the device, it will be a MOBILE device that is focused on the needs of the ENTERPRISE (that's probably the main raison d'être for W10oA). It will be quite some time yet before a pocketable surface device is introduced to the market, so it is far too early to tell whether or not that plan is failing.
MS is done with smartphones. There will be no marketing for W10M and MS will not push OEMs to pick up the slack, but MS apparently won't stand in the way if some crazy OEM wants to give it a shot anyway.
W10M will continue to exist as a lightweight (compared to full Windows) platform for running UWP apps. Whether a notable number of consumers ever again become interested in a W10M device depends on whether or not the UWP ever takes off.
Wait and see...