Windows Phone is dead. Microsoft Lumia is dead. If you didn't already know this, you've not been paying attention. But it's easy to be blind to the inevitable when you're emotionally attached to something.

Microsoft has written off the entire $7.2 billion it paid for Nokia, with interest: The writeoff totals around $8.4 billion. Told you so.

This is the end. Surely even the more ardent, die-hard fan knows it by now? Lumia and Windows Phone are brain-dead, quasi-corpses -- only kept alive by artificial life-support: Satya Nadella's and COO Kevin Turner's corp-speke could not have been clearer.

In IT Blogwatch, bloggers faze fone fanbois. Not to mention: A real flying Snoopy on his kennel...

Your humble blogwatcher curated these bloggy bits for your entertainment.

[Updated 6.57 am PDT with dissenting voice, 10.35 am with Snoopy]



Mary Jo Foley puts a brave face on it:

Microsoft officials [say] the bulk of the cuts will affect Windows Phone hardware. ... Microsoft will lay off [72%] of the Microsoft staffers based in Finland, the home of Nokia. ... A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed...this.

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Microsoft also plans to close San Diego and some of its Beijing facilities involved with Windows Phone hardware...marketing and sales also will be hit with cuts...as a result of the phone-hardware cuts. MORE



As does her mate, Paul Thurrott, who expertly buries the lede:

Yes, we were right to be worried about Windows Phone. [This is just] buying Microsoft time. ... Windows Phone is failing...it’s a fact. ... Sorry.

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[The] “impairment charge” [is] $7.6 billion...plus an additional restructuring charge of approximately [$800] million. ... [But] Microsoft paid $7.2 billion for...Nokia [so] this is a total disaster.

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[Lumia] is on borrowed time. ... Microsoft will no longer attempt to “grow a standalone phone business.” ... Nadella has zero plans for [it] to ever make any money.

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I expect Microsoft to kill Lumia. ... The future is...not Microsoft mobile hardware/phones. MORE



And Joey de Villa snarks up the rememberance:

Remember...the parade/mock funeral held on Microsoft’s campus just after the first version of Windows Phone? ... Ballmer had given them orders to write a brand new mobile operation system…or else.

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It’s not quite five years later, and...you have to admit that Windows Phone is in deep trouble now. ... The writing on the wall has never been more clear: They’re getting out of the phone hardware business [and] Windows Phone’s days are numbered.

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You know things are bad when Paul Thurrott, a die-hard Microsoft and Windows fan, says [so]. MORE



So Alex Wilhelm runs the ugly numbers:

This [is] a long-awaited financial mess for Microsoft. ... Math can be both poetic and ironic.

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On a cash basis, Microsoft is in fine shape. [But] this is going to hurt its period-EPS. Such is life.

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With Nokia, Microsoft was stuck between terrible options. ... Trapped between paying for love, and watching its partner put on an Android jersey...it took the shop in-house. [But now] Microsoft has thrown the white flag.

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The company is still going to do phones [but] when you are desperate to change your single-sale business into a subscription run-rate...everything that is a detriment to that business model shakeup has to go. MORE



Yep, I told you so, and so did people who actually know what they're talking about -- such as Tomi T Ahonen:

Lumia is dead, has been dead for years. ... Will [this] help sell more? Of course not. Nadella just wants the bleeding to stop.

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So, first, my condolences to all ex Nokia staff who will lose jobs. ... And my warning once again that this is not the end...this unit is already dead. ... It cannot be revived. It died in 2011.

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It is all dependent on the carriers/operators and the distribution channel which said in 2011 that because...Skype is the only existential threat to the mobile telecoms business, the operators will not subsidise their own death. ... The operators do want a third ecosystem but they will never accept Windows. ... Not because it happens to have...Skype. It's because Microsoft owns Skype. ... All the handset makers who exited Windows Phone have said so...as have departed Microsoft Windows Phone execs.

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The sound you heard was the last Windows Phone developers jumping off this sinking ship. MORE



Update: Daniel Rubino says I'm wrong, albeit as a voice crying in the wilderness:

There is no real positive way to spin the write-down news, but it is also not unheard of in business. ... There are just too many Lumias with overlapping features and price points. ... Nadella does not want the company to own the Windows Phone market.

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Microsoft is not "dumping" Windows Phone. ... Nadella defined three areas in which Microsoft will build Windows Phones:..Business hardware...Value phone buyers...Flagship devices. I am not sure what part of that we are supposed to read as bad.

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The idea that Microsoft is going to focus on [enterprise] for hardware differentiation in their Lumia line is fantastic. ... This [value] decision is not a retreat, folks. ... This [flagship] announcement is not a change in strategy [it] is nothing but good news.

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No, it is not dumping Windows Phone. ... Instead, Microsoft has chosen three key areas where they think they can compete...brilliant choices. ... Microsoft's realignment is exactly what the Lumia line needs. ... I like the sound of all of that. MORE



And Finally...

Awesome drone: Snoopy vs. Red Baron

[hat tip: TDW]