What Is Holding Back Windows Phone 7?

"People ask me all the time why, if I think Windows Phone is such an excellent product, sales appear so lackluster. My belief is Microsoft's approach with WP7 has a impedance mismatch with the carriers & device manufacturers while Google's approach reduces friction with carriers & device manufacturers at the expense of end users. The question is: will end-user dissatisfaction with Android's inconsistencies and fragmentation be strong enough to allow the better product to succeed."

There is an interesting post over at the cek.log blog site that asks the question "Windows Phone is Superior; Why Hasn't it Taken Off?". Needless to say, this is not a trivial question and opinions will be broad. What is particularly interesting about the post is the market analysis that is provided. The post segments the market players into four categories or "sides": users, carriers, OS providers, and device manufacturers. The post continues on to suggest how Apple, Google and Microsoft have interacted or played with each market category. A critical aspect of the market interaction, according to the post, is that Microsoft has thumbed its nose at "both the device manufacturers and mobile carriers. WP (Windows Phone) says "here's the hardware spec you shalt use" (to the device manufacturers). And it says "Here's how it will be updated" (to the carriers).". The suggestion is that this strategy has, to this point, impacted Windows Phone's ability to develop better market acceptance (in particular, actual sales).

What are your thoughts? Is Microsoft facing too much of an uphill battle to continue on with Windows Phone, or will we see the relationship with Nokia and potentially others sway the market to make it a more viable success?