Why Microsoft's mobile story is so profoundly confusing

The confusion around Microsoft's mobile story is my fault. Not mine personally, but the fault of people like me — writers and vocal techies.

Microsoft's shifts in short-term objectives are also to blame, but I'll address that later. There has been little consistency in the narrative surrounding the status of Microsoft's mobile efforts. That narrative has been dutifully communicated over the years by a number of writers, techies and various outlets. Much of that content is not straight news echoing Microsoft's declaration of its overall strategy, however. Redmond is notoriously cryptic about its moves in mobile.

Thus, the majority of what permeates the web regarding Microsoft and mobile are personal assessments based on sparse information and the state of affairs at the time of writing. And though most of what's written are based on the same data, it's filtered through the perspective, subjective perceptions and analytical aptitude of individual writers.

This has led to a seemingly unending cycle of articles declaring Windows phone and Microsoft's mobile efforts as dead; followed shortly thereafter with contrasting views by the same writers when some "new" information about some "new" plan is discovered. There's often a return to a dismal assessment when fortune seems to turn again against Microsoft in the form of departing apps, lost partnerships or some other calamity. And the beat goes on. Is Microsoft's mobile strategy as volatile as this vacillating coverage portrays? No, it is not.

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