In a well timed piece just before CES, Nick Wingfield writes about Windows Phone in the New York Times, pointing out the design ethics, the critical acclaim, and a little bit about the history of the Operating System and the Metro UI that goes hand in hand with it.

There's also this nice nugget of history on the transition from Windows Mobile to Windows Phone:

Once the iPhone exploded into the marketplace, Microsoft executives knew that their software, as designed, could never compete. So in December 2008, Terry Myerson, who had just taken over engineering for the mobile group, convened a meeting that members of his management team came to call the "cage match." With a prototype of a new Windows Mobile phone on a table, Mr. Myerson, a no-nonsense engineer , led a heated debate over whether any of the software could be salvaged. No one was leaving the room until the issue was resolved, he said... a consensus had emerged that there wasn’t much technology worth saving. "We had hit bottom, That frankly gives you the freedom to try new things, build a new team and set a new path."

But is it too late for Microsoft to join in the mobile world with Windows Phone, or will 2012 see them have an impact in market shares around the world? They are certainly doing their best with Windows Phone, and the next twelve months are going to be an exciting one for those of us watching Microsoft as Windows Phone, Xbox, Windows 8, and lots of other projects start to gather steam and work with each other.