Windows Phone 7 gets to compete against the iPhone, but it’s just not as good. The advantage WP7 has over the iPhone, namely being available on multiple devices, is already filled by Android. My favorite thing about it over Android is a powerful minimum hardware spec, but around now most phones are at a good enough spec to run Android well anyway.
As far as that nice consistent UI, I wholly agree. But Microsoft itself has shown that people have no problem buying crap.
WP7 will have some success for sure. Microsoft won’t let it fail no matter how many dollars need to be spent in advertising and pot sweetening, or in suing the competition.
I think Microsoft really learned from that mistake with the windows mobile market. They saw people drop windows mobile in a heartbeat and pay over $200 for a phone just to get something a bit more solid. With Androids lack of standards and so many OEMs willing to take advantage of a quick easy sale and android branding--the android is doom to repeat the windows mobile mistakes. I see tablets for around $100 and they are pure junk.
Think about the wife that buys her husband a $100 android tablet thinking it's got all the hype. On christmas morning the husband will be disppointed when he starts to use the cheap tablet. He'll complain to his friends that android sucks and then his friend that has a solid android product will disagree. It will fragment their market and prevent google from really doing anything signficant with it. Other than to allow cheap OEMs to sell cheap phones and tablets where the OEM controls the user experience.