No, it died when MS decided to hobble its API in their thirst to get anything out the door.

3 months after release, it still didn't have major UI components released to devs.

A year later, they still didn't have it worked out with the phone companies to do OS updates.

A year later, and I _still_ couldn't add my own ringtones.

This was 2010. The last phone that I had that couldn't do totally custom ringtones was 2003.

I really loved the UI, but there are no apps! What good is a smartphone with no apps? Of course they're being boycotted by Google and others, but no Google Maps, no Google Inbox, and other software that I use many times/day.

Why did it take this long? The UI was overtly hostile.