A few well-regarded flagship devices, a focused core experience, a vibrant app ecosystem, and a belief in the quality of its own products: Apple lives and breathes these things, and has achieved massive profitability in the phone space as a result. And it’s about the only strategy Microsoft has left to try.

Soon after purchasing Nokia’s device business for $7.2 billion last year, Microsoft began to dismantle it—first laying off a third of the staff, and more recently waving goodbye to business unit head Stephen Elop and other top executives. Today it’s writing off another $7.6 billion in impairment from the Nokia Devices and Services Business and laying off 7,800 employees. These actions tacitly acknowledge two errors: First, buying Nokia itself was a colossal mistake. Second, the strategy of making mass-market boring phones instead of eye-catching flagship phones was failing.

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