I disagree. None of what happened explains why they purchased Nokia in the first place. In 2014 the market share was increasing and although most articles and posts only see it from the American point of view, some countries were doing very well in increasing the market share of Windows Phones and in some countries, in Europe in particular but also notably in China, Windows phones were actually outselling the iPhone.
So Windows Phone was gaining momentum, the update to 8.1 was well received and there was the pending interest and excitement in Windows 10 which should have helped rope in those fans who were not too keen on Windows 8 on the desktop. The real question is one that is rarely asked and that is why did Microsoft not keep the momentum going, introduce a batch of new phones on a regular basis, and continue to try and build the interest that was clearly there?
I don't think it was a bad purchase at all, I think the Lumia range was a growing business which was well respected by those who bought the phones, helped along by the familiarity of the Nokia name, that for whatever reason Microsoft chose not to develop. It is rarely written that the main reason for the decrease in market share is nothing to do with all the speculative nonsense you read all over the place, it is simply that the models were withdrawn from the market without being replaced. People are not going to buy if there is nothing to buy.
Proof of this was easy to see. I wanted a 950XL but had to settle for a 950 because it was the only one available on the network I have a contract with. In fact in the UK it was only available on one network. I know from reading various posts it was the same story in the US, people couldn't get the phone they wanted on the network they wanted. At the same time it's worth bearing in mind that there is little, if any, profit in low end phones which usually make a loss for the manufacturers.
The likes of Samsung got a large market share by flooding the market with an almost endless range of models right across the range. Even Nokia had a reasonable number of models to choose from and most were available on most networks, but almost as soon as Microsoft bought out the Nokia business they switched it off, long before it had started to fail. Even the Nokia name was dropped almost immediately. There has to be a reason for that but as the market share wasn't that bad at the time of purchase, I don't think Windows Phone is failing in it's current form because people didn't buy them, or because of the apps or anything like that, it's simply because the products didn't exist to satisfy the demand that was already there. Case in point were the 950/XL which I think are perfectly fine but the market expected a flagship device to rival other flagship models, in appearance in particular, and it didn't happen.
It is worth bearing in mind that 1% is still equal to over 100 million phones and there are a lot of CEOs of big companies who would die for that many sales. It's also worth noting that Microsoft don't have to licence the operating system, like Samsung et al have to from Google. Samsung, LG, Sony etc. are all bleeding money in their smartphone departments and many smaller phone makers still don't sell anything like the number of phones that Microsoft have sold, in Europe and the US in particular (Sharp, Panasonic etc.).
Maybe it's simply a case of what's the point of trying to pursue something that even if they succeed and get Samsung-like sales figures, still isn't going to make them that much money, if any? With that in mind, as far as the hardware department is concerned perhaps going the way that other PC manufacturers have gone, HP, Acer etc, by concentrating on the core business and just bringing out one or two complimentary phones that work well with the rest of the kit - the Surface phone would be the perfect fit for this - is the correct way to go.
And with Nokia/Lumia being no more, any potential real competition has gone! Think about it - if the Surface phone has been planned all along - and it has been touted for some time now - doesn't it make sense in many ways to get rid of the main competition? How many would buy the no-doubt far more expensive Surface Phone if Nokia released at top of the range Lumia 990 at the same time? History is littered with big businesses getting rid of the main competition by buying them out, so maybe it's not such a bad move after all.