In the last year Microsoft started purchasing a lot of companies. For instance, after buying Acompli many people thought that finally the ugly and buggy e-mail client from Windows / Windows Phone will be replaced. Indeed, the client was replaced, however, not with a superior version, but with one that is both - better and worse. Needless to say that the overall experience was still mediocre.
The same can be said about Sunrise, which is a calendar app purchased by Microsoft. My hopes (and the hopes of many other users) did not manifest in any change. Instead, we have a calendar app that opens a modal dialog on phones. How crazy is that?
And now Microsoft buys a keyboard app. They have been very proud on their own product, which was quite nice in Windows Phone 8. Here, the swiping seemed to be context-aware and learned things (e.g., "Flo"). But with the Windows Phone 10 version all this seems to be gone. It is using an outdated version of the German dictionary and does not recognize the abbreviation of my name even though I swiped and typed it more than a dozen times.
Is this recent purchase admitting defeat? Unfortunately, I don't think so. The problem is that further investments (see above) have been integrated in the worst possible way. If any contributions came from these investments, then they certainly did not matter much. However, as Windows Phone is slowly declaring defeat, I don't think Microsoft actually wants to boost this. Otherwise, we would see a completely different attitude. I may be wrong here, but this does not improve things for Microsoft. Why are they doing such a bad job if they care about the platform?
Nevertheless, one thing is certain: Microsoft likes buying companies on the rise, even though their product won't be integrated in the anticipated / required fashion.