On the other hand, the same skillset you use to manipulate your phone is the same skillset you use to manipulate your tablet and your PC. Which means you have one and only one skillset to learn. Developers can make applications that work on your phone, tablet, and PC with little to no code changes. Write once use everywhere. This is unlike Android and Mac.
JamesNT
Mac is different, but developing for Android/iOS/Blackberry/Windows can all be accomplished with the same tool set. Developing a touch-centric app uses a similar UX (User eXperience) regardless of the target OS. As a developer, I'll take that workflow any day over developing desktop specific applications.
The key macro factor that that Microsoft has attempted to respond to is that folk's next computer is increasingly a mobile device, not a desktop.
http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Desktop-Search-Decline-14-Billion-Google-Users-Shift-Mobile/1010668As others have observed, there is a whole generation of developers now who see Microsoft as 'legacy', and develop for mobile OSs; mobile developers are in the largest demand (even in the enterprise market) and Microsoft up to this point has not gotten traction.
http://recode.net/2014/02/13/why-sa...-chance-of-saving-microsoft-from-itself/Perhaps that will change, or perhaps not, but desktops are a dying user-case.