With Android and iOS out there isn't WM sort of late to the party?
Very. While it's a tolerable mobile OS to use, and it's gaining ground in emerging markets like China, no one in first world markets really has a use for it. I got my Mother a W7 phone, she loves it - but it's also her first smartphone, and she's about 15 years behind in the tech department, heh. She found my iPhone a bit too complex, in fact. They have been trying to market them to existing smartphone (ios and android) owners, and it's failed badly.
Sadly, the poor sales of W7 devices is really dragging Nokia down. They had a loss of over 2 billion euros in the last 5 quarters and recently announced they are laying off 10,000 staff.
http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/362236/nokia-cuts-10000-more-jobs-losses-deepenNokia always made a great handset, hardware wise - but I can't help but feel they drove the nails in their own coffin by going with the MS mobile OS rather than Android. At this rate, both them and RIM (Blackberry) will be at single digit market share in a matter of years. Nokia still does well in feature phone markets, but that market is going away in a huge way.
Nokia smartphones have always been next to non existant in North America due to the fact they were rarely ever subsidized by the carriers. No one was willing to pay $800 for an N9 when a new model iphone could be had for $300 with a 3 year contract.