I didn't hear about the "official" end of WP8 before this and even now it is a link to a blog and not to MS making an announcement. Yet I could have told you at some point WP8 was coming to an end in favor of the next WP OS. My point is MS isn't putting things out that should be making people fearful. They are simply open about the life cycle of their software. You need to blame the blogs for picking this up and raising FUD if that is what you got out of the TC article. I simply don't see the average person digging through MS life cycle support pages and coming up with this. Most likely only us tech enthusiasts reading tech blogs will hear about it and we should already know to take those with a grain or two of salt
So what can we conclude when we drill down? I think jnjroach nailed it and the article alludes to it and is half focused on it. With Apple you never know when your phone is going to be outdated. They simply say here is a new phone OS and by the way it only applies to x model and up. I still have an original iPhone that is useless for getting apps simply because it isn't supported for the latest iOS which prevents me from getting anything new. It appears Windows phones are going to work the same way at least in these first couple of versions (WP7/8). What we don't know if if Blue will be more akin to Android, where theoretically the new OS can be applied to any device but it is up to the OEM and the carriers to supply the update to models they choose to support or like Apple where they simply tell you what is no longer being supported.
That leave us with Windows Blue guesses. We all know this is coming and Windows phones would greatly benefit from being tied into it. Blue is still very secret despite some leaks. Why would MS rush out and tell everybody that Windows Blue is coming to Windows phones when they aren't ready to make any other Blue announcements? Will the new Blue be more like continuous Android updates or more like distinct iOS/WP7/WP8 updates? In the end this is a simple case of acknowledgement that the current Windows Phone OS will expire at some point. Just like Apple iOS whether or not they tell you a new version is coming in the future, we all know that is the case and when it does iPhone 4 is not going to get it and therefore become obsolete. They all have valid reasons for not letting these OS upgrade details out ahead of time.
MS seems to sit somewhere between Apple and Android letting us know that WP OS# will expire at some point but not letting us know what is coming next. I don't see any reason to be concerned unless you want to buy into blog FUD which is trying to say this is the end of Window Phone entirely. Have you ever heard that about iPhones? Yet Apple is obsoleting the older models with iOS updates on a regular basis. That is just the phone OS cycle and we can reasonably assume old phone OSes will be retired and new ones will replace them without getting all freaked out.
JP