RIP Windows Phone Division

The demise of Microsoft’s mobile phone ambitions came today in a complex transaction that seemed both sudden and yet inevitable.

And now, even the biggest Windows Phones fans (yes, they exist!) cannot ignore reality.

Windows Phones are dead. Windows Mobile is on life support. The end is nigh.

Microsoft is selling its feature phone business (a legacy of the Nokia handset business it bought) to a Foxconn subsidiary. Meanwhile, Microsoft is also licensing the Nokia name for handsets back to Nokia, which has set up a new company that will make feature phones, Android-based smartphones, and tablets.

Now, Microsoft claims it is not giving up the ghost entirely, even though it is enabling yet another competitor in the smartphone business