Sure, but right now Apple and their ARM designs are running away from everybody else. Plus Windows is terrible from a security and power consumption point of view. Can Microsoft fix that without breaking everything?
I think MS is conceding the entire phone space. Full screen form factors (like laptops is and large tablets) are very important but for small devices I don't think they can compete.
Windows is way ahead in both security and power efficiency.
About security, here’s an example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10410833 In Windows, clipboard access was restricted to foreground app since WP7.
About power efficiency, WP is very restrictive on what apps can do in background. See this: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh2029...
The fact that a viable mobile OS has to be restrictive about background operations is exactly what I was talking about when I said they can't fix it without breaking everything.
I mean that capability is where the desktop version of windows keeps getting more features matching; each version of Phone and Desktop have been more and more like each-other.
Nonsense
https://np.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/74xc2z/windows_an...
https://np.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/6ifyxq/spotify_for_...