They're killing it because they realize that their smartphone ambitions are a dead end. Why would you chase your small handful users to a different platform right before you released a Surface Phone? That's the dumbest thing I ever heard. You don't kill off one product before you release another one to replace it. Especially when there aren't even credible rumors of a successor. Even if Surface Phone happens (it won't), why would people come back after you pulled the rug out from under them and pushed them to a new platform?
No, Microsoft is killing W10M because it's not a realistic mission for them to have their own smartphone platform. They waited too long to modernize, and they will never be able to catch up to Android and iOS. Microsoft is years behind the other platforms, and that gap can never be closed as long as MS treats phones as an afterthought rather than a cornerstone.
Anyways, after buying the Zune, RT, Band, WP 7/8/10, nobody has any confidence that this won't be another expensive proof-of-concept experiment where consumers are left holding the bag with beta products that are essentially DOA. So it would take a minimum of two promising iterations of Surface Phone before your burned customers are willing to come back. Like how people were reluctant to return to Surface until the Surface 3 line. I don't know if MS has the will or resources to absorb losses like that on a new phone experiment.
No, Microsoft is killing W10M because it's not a realistic mission for them to have their own smartphone platform. They waited too long to modernize, and they will never be able to catch up to Android and iOS. Microsoft is years behind the other platforms, and that gap can never be closed as long as MS treats phones as an afterthought rather than a cornerstone.
Anyways, after buying the Zune, RT, Band, WP 7/8/10, nobody has any confidence that this won't be another expensive proof-of-concept experiment where consumers are left holding the bag with beta products that are essentially DOA. So it would take a minimum of two promising iterations of Surface Phone before your burned customers are willing to come back. Like how people were reluctant to return to Surface until the Surface 3 line. I don't know if MS has the will or resources to absorb losses like that on a new phone experiment.