[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.