The common perception seems to be that WP & Nokia is failing but I actually think they've managed to turn things around, there's a little inertia but they're getting there
1) Major players has started developing and supporting windows phone apps. Twitter, Tumblr,Facebook, WhatsApp, Foursquare all have quality apps. Maybe they're not updated with the frenzy of the pace-leader Apple but what do people expect when they're coming from behind. Compare that to blackberry which is a true wasteland
2) Nokia has been stellar in its support of its Windows Phone users, pushing out excellent updates, services and apps. Perhaps its partly because they're fighting for their life but I'd argue that Nokia is one of the best phone manufacturers there is right now from the users point of view.
3) Nokia/Microsoft is between update cycles. Nokia won't and can't push out a major flagship phone before Microsoft has the next major version of its OS ready. A major complaint of Nokia phones has been hardware specs (which I think its a little retarted since WP performs as well or better than many android phones on "less" specs), with the next update MS will probably up the support for newer hardware and resolutions
4) Microsoft and Nokia has a very compelling ecosystem together, something that even Samsung is hard to match. MS has Office/Yammer/Sharepoint/XBOX and Windows. Nokia has a range of quality services within mapping, music, local transit. While most are not pack leader they're certainly not that far from it.
5) If anyone thinks Microsoft going to stop pouring money at the problem and/or adapting & improving they're crazy, and their coffers are huge. Tablets and Windows Phones are too important a segment for MS to ignore so they will continue to claw themselves to the top until they're at least firmly top 3.
6) Windows Phone at its core is one of the most recent & modern OS's there is. Android & IPhone have been around longer and has more bagage.
7) Windows Phone leads in user satisfaction so clearly they're doing something right. The only thing that's holding them back is "lack of apps". But I think what Windows Phone lacks is not quantity of apps, but what they need is a few unique "flagship" apps to show its a contender and they will start to change the impression of the platform around.
Also I think at its core WP is the only phone that has a UI paradigm that will work in the long run. Its flabbergasting that people can spend so much time arguing how the icons look in ios7 looks like and not that its an outdated limited paradigm. The future belongs with more glanceable / dashboard-oriented UI's
Microsoft have however dropped the ball a little, they should have been doing as good a job as Nokia: pushing out apps, updates and features more quickly. But we'll see, WP8 was the first version using the new kernel so there probably was some housekeeping to be done, once the behemoth gets rolling we'll see what happens.
I think Nokia made a good bet although its hard to say. Look at the trouble HTC is in now. Sure Samsung is up right now but all manufacturers are only one missed cycle from being screwed. Android is so commoditized that's its hard to differentiate. Meanwhile Nokia is owning a whole powerful ecosystem on its own.
In the end however I think any company that doesn't have an app store is pretty much screwed so that leaves Google, Apple, Microsoft and possibly Amazon