The good news: Microsoft sold more than 18 million Windows Mobile licenses in the last fiscal year, which ended June 30.
The bad news: That's 2 million short of its 20-million-unit target.
Of course, it's all a matter of perspective. Worldwide, only Nokia and its Symbian OS is outselling Windows Mobile. Senior VP Andy Lees noted that Redmond's market share rose nearly 2 percentage points, to nearly 13 percent of the world smartphone market.
And Lees dumps some of the shortfall blame on device manufacturers, saying that some devices went to market later than expected. But he was mum on who the slowpokes were.
"The OEMs give us predictions as to when they'll ship the devices, and I don't want to put them in the dunk tank, if that's a phrase, by implying that they didn't stay on time. That's confidential conversations that we have."
Being as this is the sort of thing investors worry about, Microsoft stock (MSFT) was down just a tick at 11 a.m. EDT, at 26.20 a share.
