The only questions I'd have are, did you ever use Zune? Have you ever used Windows Mobile 6? Zune, as a hardware product, was far and away better than an iPod as a music player, the accompanying software was more visually appealing, stable, and easier to use and discover, and with a Zune Pass and SmartDJ you had something that rivaled Spotify, without having to have YAA (yet another app) to use it. The problem with Zune (both software and hardware) was marketing, or more accurately, a lack thereof. Coupled with the fact that Windows Phone 7 (which worked well with it) didn't get a lot of marketing love in the US didn't help either product, and I have no clue who was responsible for this. Instead of pushing Zune and WP, they were both condemned to death, and that was nothing to do with the product quality of either.
Onward to your other point, Windows Mobile 6.x compared very little to what the iPhone was at the time, or even is today, and that's why it was eventually phased out and replaced (by WP7, also based on WinCE, or WP8.x, based on an actual NT kernel). WP6.x as a platform, compared to a modern smartphone (even in 2007), was ancient in capability and reach, and again, while WP7 was a very useful (and easy to use) device, it lacked marketing and developer push, at least in the US. Even a relatively silly product release, like the KIN, failed not because it wasn't a good device at what it was designed to do, but poor planning and marketing doomed it - forcing a data plan for something that wasn't a true smartphone killed it. The disaster wasn't the product, it was that it should never have actually been released, as it competed directly with WP7 in functionality (as a subset of it). The fallout with Verizon and with customers was truly self-inflicted.
The problem with Microsoft's products of late have been down to either a complete lack of marketing presence before, during, and after launch, or poor marketing campaigns. The products themselves, and the services they use, are usually better than the competition (and as someone complaining about Zune, I can tell you never actually used it). With SteveB leaving, I do hope THAT changes, because on face value Microsoft's products are much better than their release/marketing campaigns do them justice for. I actually think the re-org will solve some of these problems of different divisions creating competing products, a lack of focus on the overall platform at times, etc. Here's hoping.
