Most people do not even have a clue about which operating system their phone has. And they do not care. Just like they do not do with PC either.
If Windows Phone doesn't interest anyone. It is because they were unable to fit a niche. It is because their phone is a disaster. The operating system is irrelevant for most of phone users.
You just proved his point that no one talks about Microsoft because of the social stigma attached to it. You just proved that if you say something nice about Microsoft, your peers will make you an outcast.
1) In mainstream use, Microsoft and Windows are 'Big Business'. Nobody wants that anywhere near the photos of their kids.
2) For geeks, Microsoft is the devil because they've managed to annoy most long time geeks in some form or another.
Indeed, it really is the problem. But it's the problem Microsoft is going to have to fix - and believe me, their 'spam the forums' and 'give free things' approach is not going to cut it. They need to drop the Windows and Microsoft branding for consumer devices in the same way Lexus is not Toyota. They need to make sure that the business and consumer products look as different as possible also.
I realize Microsoft is doing the exact opposite of what I've said above - and that's the real problem. What you're complaining about is just the mis-branding and mis-management of Microsoft bleeding through into the general populace.
But I would ask that the platform be in some way open. Windows has always been open in that it will run on a variety of commodity hardware and there are no restrictions on who can develop for the platform and in how they can distribute their software. MacOS (and iOS) has always been restricted to Apple hardware. So Apple has always been more closed and walled garden-y than Microsoft with the exception that they use a load of open-source software in their OS stack once you look under the hood.
Microsoft (seeing as how they won't go the open-source model cuz it aint in their blood) could try and make the Windows Phone OS installable on a whole bunch of phones, it could allow for easy side-loading of apps and have a very low $ (perhaps even zero?) entry into their app store. That way Microsoft might eventually replicate the dominance they have on the desktop. But even then a lot of geeks are going to be wary.
Android really seems unstoppable. Nokia should never have gone exclusively with Windows Phone OS - it seems really strange back then and it seems practically suicidal now.