What is RIGHT and what is WRONG with the Windows Phone 8 ecosystem

Apple and Microsoft are one of the most innovative companies on this planet. Especially on the software side. While Microsoft has more or less realized its vision of putting a computer (and its Windows OS) on every desk, it has failed quite miserably in the smartphone space, considering that it has a much longer history of developing smartphones than Apple or Samsung. It is strange that in the near future there will be more smartphones and tablets than PCs or Workstations or Servers. The PC is relegated to the domain of content creator & publisher, not consumer in the new world order.

Microsoft has been late to the new-gen Smartphone OS category (created by IOS and Apple). While Google's Android is similar to IOS, Microsoft's valiant attempt at Windows 7 is quite refreshing & different (even if its late). One just looks to play around with an android & IOS device to notice the similarities (rows of icons of apps whether they have rounded or sharp corners, home buttons, notifications, etc), though I like to admit that Android as an OS is pore powerful and feature rich than IOS which is restrictive. Android's widgets, home screens etc have precedents in Mac OS X)  But then if you get you hands on Windows Phone 8 device, you will immediately notice the differences in home screen (only one and with tiles displaying key information), alphabetic organization & indexing of apps, button for search and how app/home windows are stacked and so on). In-fact I find Windows Phone easier to use and having the best interface among the lot. On the OS side also, the footprint is less and the response is breezy w\even with 513\2 MB or 1 GB of RAM ( I own a Lumia 920 as my work phone). 

Yet both the the OS and the app system needs more maturity. We need better update mechanism (my Lumia does not show which applications need update if I want to pull those. It only pushes at its convenience, unlike IOS and Android). The number of concurrent apps in backgrounds needs to increases (or at-least an option needs to be given to increase it beyond what is possible). But IOS has similar model and its successful. But the real pain point is the app ecosystem. IMO, these are the issues:

1. A new application is introduced usually for IOS or Android (or both) first with unclear road-map for WP8
2. A new feature in existing applications (popular or not) is released for IOS/Android (or both) but much later for WP8, provided its available for WP8
3. Many of the existing popular applications have versions for Android & IOS, but not for WP8
4. Google and Yahoo run the most popular Internet services after Facebook, Whatsapp & Twitter, not Apple or Microsoft. Yet Apple 's IOS because of its first mover advantage & Google's Android because of its market share (80%) have managed to get most native apps from Google & Apple for their Internet services, while WP8 hardly has any (Google search may be an exception but its without the NOW feature) from Google and Apple.
5. Are their any other reasons apart from small market-share which are holding developers from monetizing their apps on WP8 or priortizing them on par with other OS?

One can say that these are issues caused by the fact that the WP8 user base is minuscule compared to IOS/Android. But one can also argue that till the above situation (1-5) changes to a level playing field for WP8, the user adoption cannot be expected to pick up. Its a deadlock and resolving this is Microsoft's biggest challenge, even though its WP8 products has footprints & fingerprints of a superior race. Theyt are already bleeding by licensing WP8 free to OEMS, writing many apps themselves or paying 3rd party developers to write them. How long can they bleed ? Possibly the money earned from patent royalties (it own Nokia too now which itself can be a patent troll) may help it to run for a longer time in this race.

And this not the end of Microsoft's troubles. Its server market is dented big time by the ever improving opens-source linux and linux applications. Its on-premise enterprise market is under threat from cloud based solutions from SMEs to large enterprises. Its consumer market is declining as people are buying more Tablets and smartphones not running a windows OS version instead of Windows based PCs, Laptops and the dead Netbooks. Its internet services market have never reached the same level as Google. Can Microsoft win all these battles simultaneously ?