Summary: WP7 (Vista Phony 7) is being dissed by mobile phone manufacturers and coming to their rescue are the usual suspects

WHAT'S a thug to do when s/he lacks the education, the reputation, the skills, and the smarts to produce a decent phone? Go beat up those who succeed. That is what Microsoft is doing these days. Quite the gamble given that it sometimes turns out that those whom Microsoft beats up are stronger than expected and are putting up a fight.

The company which fought against the Web since its inception is now trying to pretend to like it because it realises that Google cannot be "killed" in the same way that Netscape was ("cut off Netscape’s air supply" is the exact phrase from Paul Maritz, back then a Vice President of Microsoft and now VMWare CEO/mole).

Just as we predicated all along, Vista Phony 7 is going down the same alley as Zune or KIN. Even one of IDG's more shameless Microsoft boosters acknowledges industry disinterest in Vista Phony 7 because there is no way to spin it.

Mobile phone company ZTE will probably have a few chairs flying at Redmond this week with its announcement that it doesn’t see any reason to go with a WP7 smartphone.

It becomes impossible to deny that Vista Phony 7 appears to be dead in the water (unless Microsoft manages to plant a mole like Elop, who in turn accepts it for personal rewards), so what Microsoft does right now is, well... it wants to ensure it gets paid for another company's products, using software patents. It has all sorts of mobbyists supporting this plan, notably the likes of Microsoft Florian and to an extent Microsoft MVP de Icaza, who exchanges some words with Microsoft Florian (great mobbyists think alike). IDG's other Microsoft booster, Jon Brodkin (they all write for the Microsoft "section") has just published "GNOME creator respects proprietary software, can't wait for iPad 2" and he then pushed this into Linux Today (yes, a Microsoft booster submits story suggestions to a Linux site). For those who do not know, Brodkin is the primary person in IDG who whitewashes Microsoft's image. He is playing the FOSS-hostile role by injecting Microsoft into it and the reason for describing Microsoft MVP de Icaza just as "GNOME creator" may be the desire to legitimise proprietary software. Typical IDG, the Fox News of IT. ⬆