Absolutely, but Microsoft is a perfect case in point. They are behind in market share, even with the most advanced development environment.
A really good guy can be very productive in spite of a not so good development environment.
Apple has spiffed their environment up nicely. You still have a lot of scut work to do. But that scut work means that the OS doesn’t have to work so hard and monitor so much.
The money guys don’t give a rats a$$ about that stuff it’s just f*ck you code it so I can get paid.
I hear ya - and you sound like you’ve been there, done that and gotten the T-shirt so I give your remarks the respect that they deserve.
As far as MS goes - well OK they have the best developer-friendly environment - I didn’t mean to imply that that was ALL that was needed to be a success - more along the lines that all other things being equal it seems like it would be better to be friendly than not.
MS phones seem to have no street cred i.e. nobody wants them (or so it seems to me) - regardless of how quick you could turnaround an app on that platform.