The provocative headline isn't really where the article is going, but it does make a good strategic point: windows phone is failing because they've decided to split the difference between their competitors' strategies, requiring enough control to allow the software to be good, but not enough to ensure that the hardware is also good, thus ensuring that their products aren't so great that consumers demand them but also requiring enough control that carriers don't like them and thus don't push them. Optimal points often live at the extremes rather than in the middle.