This is one of those stories in which the facts are construed to fit the conventional wisdom regarding Microsoft, e.g. no mention of WP7 which was announced and previewed in the quarter immediately prior to the Courier's cancellation, no mention of the investment Microsoft made in development of the Metro interface, and of course no mention of the manufacturing costs inherent in a dual screen device or the energy such a device would consume with mainstream technology.

Instead, there is the criticism that Microsoft is not enough like Apple (and a focus on personalities).

When manufacturers don't see a way to build and sell dual screen tablets at a profit, Microsoft won't sell much of the software to run them. It is not as if Microsoft doesn't have the enough experience as a hardware provider to evaluate the economics of going it alone versus partnering with the electronics industry. And partnering with the electronics industry rather than competing as a manufacturer has - with the exception of the XBOX in a market dominated by proprietary hardware - been a highly successful course.

Finally, it is not as if the design decisions underlying the courier are dead - a viable dual screen tablet is still as plausible today as it was when the iPad started shipping and there is no reason such a device could not run with a Metro interface or that the technology developed as part of the Courier project could not be incorporated.

What was killed was a project which required forking the Windows roadmap in ways analogous to past Microsoft decisions and which led to Windows Mobile becoming a dead end overnight - never mind that a mobile device without email probably would have been stillborn.