[possmann]

I could not agree more with what has been said here and the observations. Yes, MS sucks (always has) and marketing to the personal (not business) users. MS also has a unique challenge here that Apple and RIM don;t have; MS only makes the operating system and then leaves the rest up to the hardware vendors while Apple and RIM control the entire process. You can't ignore this as contributing to the success of these devices as opposed to the winmo OS.
There is no argument that there are tons of great features of the WinMo OS but it always appears that the OS was designed for the "more than casual user". Another way of looking at these three OS's; WinMo appears to be made by someone saying "let's port the Windows OS on to a phone" while the other two are operating systems built for mobile phone use from the ground up. I am not saying that WinMo wasn't built in the same manner, but the appearance and user interface of the WinMo system is that of making the Windows Desktop OS work on a phone. Subtle, but very significant when it comes to User Experience and stability.
For many months I have been pleased and frustrated at the same time when I look at the great "overlay" that HTC created for the WinMo system. Pleased that someone took the initiative to make a user friendly way of navigating through the WinMo OS. Frustrated that it took a Third Party to do it when I think it shoud have been MS' responsiblity all along.
It's exciting to see the Zune HD OS - in fact I would go so far as to say just trash the WinMo OS and build out the Zune HD "OS" as the mobile phone OS. Something significant needs to happen to WinMo in order to get it back in to the marketplace and compete with these two (iPhone and BB) and I think the Zune HD "OS" is the revolution that needs to occur.