These days, Microsoft spokepersons and cheerleaders are trying to justify past and present failed strategies from Microsoft, particularly related to Windows phone.

I think it lacks common sense.

In the middle 80s, Microsoft grew in popularity very fast because Windows was an open OS. Being an open OS, any software developer could sell their software directly to customers without Microsoft having a say. This is clearly not the case anymore : the Windows store is a closed "ecosystem", where Microsoft has a say in everything. Microsoft decides your fate, and there is no denying this has been a tremendous factor for software developers to stop caring and trusting Microsoft so-called technologies.

This culminates by the way to today's Windows telemetry, where Microsoft gathers in real-time the log of all your applications, and potentially user identifiable data. To me, as a software developer, I simply cannot support Windows 10. It's a matter of morale and principle. Apparently many software developers around the world feel the same, because the then Windows 8 API and now Windows 10 API is not exactly being embraced en masse. Quite the contrary.

The other point is that the open platform from the 80s became so much a virtuous circle for Microsoft that they became a distribution monopoly, with extreme power : you could not buy a PC without a Windows license. And you could not have a Windows license without an Internet Explorer install set as default web browser. Perhaps this went a little too far since by early 2000 many customers, even those completely engulfed, started questioning the merit of all this.