Not a single smartphone out right now will be able to upgrade to Windows Phone 8. If you’re a recent customer, you might be frustrated. Rightfully so. But if you care about the dazzling future of Windows Phone, get over it.

What Microsoft is doing with Windows Phone 8 is what it has to do: laying cement for an OS that will last deep into the future—or at least as long as you’ll own your phone. Your Lumia is based on Windows CE, software that was first released during the Clinton administration. It’s ancient, and it’s holding the entire platform back. WP8, and its incompatibility with the phone you might own right now, is a much-needed fresh start.

More than that, it’s a fundamental shift, uprooting everything; Microsoft’s packing up the house, putting it on the back of a truck, and moving it out of the dead-end suburban cul-de-sac and onto a gorgeous country estate. WP8 will now share common code with the impending desktop and tablet versions of Windows 8. If this sounds complicated, it shouldn’t: by next year, every new Windows computer, slate, and phone will have the same modern software DNA, which will give Microsoft-friendly handsets access to the best programming magic available.

via Sorry, But Microsoft Screwing Windows Phone Fans Is the Right Thing To Do.