[macrael]

I think you are simplifying things a lot. I wasn't around back them to know the whole history myself, but my understanding is that there were a whole lot of factors that contributed to Windows taking over. A big part of it was Microsoft's ability to make many advantageous deals with the different hardware makers. Two big questions I have about how this is going to play out compared to the last time:

1. Is this really what the hardware makers want? They all have seen history as well, and if they go all in with Google the way that HP and Dell did with Microsoft, it leaves the them with precious little to differentiate themselves by. This is why the PC makers have all mostly ended up in a race to the lowest price with razor thin margins. Don't you think a company like HTC would rather be in Apple's position today with the Mac than in Dell's position with their PC's? * A partial answer to this question is that Palm did try, and seems to have failed (which is confusing to me because they seemed to be doing exciting things and had people who really liked their phones) so maybe the HTC's and Motorola's of the world think they have little choice in the matter

2. What does having a third major player in the room do to negotiations (OS + Hardware + Carrier)

One incident that ties these two questions together is how Motorola got screwed over the Droid. They invested a lot in making a decent smartphone running Android but since Verizon owns the name of the product, Motorola gets bumpkis from the product's success. People who bought a Droid may go out and buy a Droid 2 but they will be getting a phone from HTC not Motorola.

A post script question I have is how customers will react to the Dell-and-HP-ification of phones. With computers, there was never really an expectation of how fast and smoothly they could get things done. If Android phone makers end up in a price cutting war, they had better make sure the base model they are selling works better than some off the rack LG flip phone. People won't put up with phones that don't work, their experience is with phones that do.

[aduric]

I don't think the big reason for Microsoft's ascendancy was their deal-making. They provided a solution to hardware makers who wanted to sell their hardware. Microsoft came in with a cheap software stack that did everything Apple products did. I bet if given a choice, these hardware makers would have wanted Apple's software, but Apple didn't comply, or it was too expensive.

Hardware makers today (HTC, Motorola and the rest) will most definitely go all in with Google because there's no other choice if they want to compete with Apple! I'm sure they're all well aware that they won't be able to differentiate themselves and they their margins will be razor thin, but even razor thin margins are better than no margins.

[macrael]

I didn't mean to say deal making was the biggest reason, just a big reason for Microsoft's success. As someone else pointed out in this thread, while Microsoft did indeed supply the hardware makers with an OS, they very quickly made sure it was the only OS those hardware makers would be able to sell. Also, my understanding is that the Mac OS was let stagnate in the 90's and that most people actually thought Windows was a superior choice anyway.

Is it really the case that Android is the only option at this point for hardware makers who are not Apple? That seems silly to me. The other choice is to compete with Apple by building the whole stack. My worry is that Palm's apparent failure is going to put the rest of the industry off of the idea. It doesn't seem ridiculous to me for a company like HTC or Motorola to either buy Palm or start from scratch on their own OS so that they actually have something to sell their product with instead of just selling yet another android touchscreen device. Is that not an option?

[aduric]

Microsoft was able to make sure that they were the only OS mainly because of hardware makers' tendency to accept the solution that everyone else was going with. If your main competitor offers a Windows stack, why risk going with something else? I do agree with you to the extent that it all started with their landmark IBM deal. In today's landscape, why would HTC or Motorola or some other hardware maker risk developing their own stack and maintaining it when everyone else seems to be offering Android? I think its more about minimising risk than innovation. Who wants another OS/2 on their hands?

[macrael]

Who indeed? OS/2 is a prime example of what can happen to a hardware company that puts its destiny in the hands of another. IBM got screwed by Microsoft when they pulled out of OS/2. If IBM had their own OS independent of Microsoft, they wouldn't necessarily have had the same problem. Also, the HUGE difference between now and then is that today we have the internet. Incompatibility was a huge problem back then because if you had two people with different OS's, you couldn't share anything, let alone run the same programs. With the web as an intermediary, we have a much better way to share information than we did back then.

Ex: Even if the same app doesn't run on two different OS's, they can both still talk to twitter. Back in the day, if you both didn't have a copy of Word, (and floppy drives) you couldn't share data.

Also, re: why would anyone want to do this, my answer to that is that if they have something different from everyone else who is competing on who can sell the cheapest Android phone, they would have something to sell.

[artsrc]

It strikes me that the problem PC hardware vendors have is their own short sightedness in supporting only one supplier of chips, operating systems etc. It took a long while for their margins to shrink.

Maybe the smarter play is to produce high quality, good value Symbian, Android and Windows Mobile phones that address the market.