By their actions, they are essentially admitting that WP7 was just an interim OS with almost no support lifecycle. This also implies that Windows Phone was never 'ready' early as a competitor to the N9, but was actually always a "get something turdy shipped that we can sell while we quickly play catch-up behind the scenes" manoeuvre on Microsoft's part.

It actually implies that the internal Nokia software departments such as the Harmattan Team did not lose the software war at all, as those software projects have been stopped, but WP8 is only now catching up to the feature set (NFC etc), but they actually lost the internal software marketing war, as they had an enemy at the helm of the company who had been given complete authority to destroy any pre-existing strategy and product.

However, none of this matters if this type of WP support strategy continues from MS, the platform will not last long at all. Customers do not regard built-in obsolescence as an appealing feature in their technology devices. Their competitors at Apple understand how new OS releases and support can continue for older hardware, and customers will flock to that platform or elsewhere instead.

Microsoft is running scared now that tablets have taken a chunk of the laptop market share, and Android has more new OS installations than Windows desktop. MS have a lot of cash reserves so they can keep subsidising unprofitable operations, but they also don't treat their partner companies particularly well, and some of them struggle to survive. Yes of course MS can have their own branded handsets manufactured like the new surface tablet, but how well did that work for them with Zune, and are they good at carrier partnerships?