[Zigurd]

As an OEM you have basically two choices:

1. Do Android. You can crap it up with bloatware, or you can resign yourself to non-differentiation in software features and try to distinguish your products in hardware.

2. You can dick around with a badly supported oddball OSs and go back to Android after you waste some money. Nobody is putting in the effort it takes to compete with Android.

Maybe someone should put in the investment to compete with Android, but it isn't true that "something has to give." It is possible to compete with Android, but that will cost many tens of millions, and maybe hundreds of millions just to try. Samsung won't put that kind of money into Tizen. Who else has the potential to compete?

Really, the OEMs have nobody but themselves to blame for poor margins. If they can't think beyond bloatware "differentiation" they deserve their outcomes.