The reality is that mobile OS that will offer free IOS/Android wrapper for apps that actually works out of the box will win the market. This way from day 1 there will be enough apps for users to consider switching.
That was IBM's strategy for killing Windows with OS/2 -- shipping OS/2 with extremely robust support for running Windows applications right alongside OS/2 ones. The marketing people pitched it as "a better Windows than Windows."
It didn't work; third party developers saw that a Windows app could serve both the Windows and OS/2 markets and focused all their energy on their Windows app, usually not bothering to write an OS/2 version at all. The result was that Windows' big moat -- its application library -- actually got deeper. IBM's big plan to kill Windows ended up cementing its position as a dominant platform.
This is a classic lesson. Firefox OS tried to invert it. You could run FxOS apps on Android devices. And Windows devices. And Linux devices.
MS is doing somewhat the IBM thing with their Linux for Windows. I've been curious to see if that would have the same result for them that it had for IBM.
They were both growing rapidly in a brand new market. What I am proposing is a solution for low budget OS to have ANY chance against duopoly. If Mozilla would allow painless wrapping Android apps, I bet their platform would be in a different place now. I remember my non-technical friends saying they like Mozilla for price etc, but they won't get it as there is no apps.
I don't think you're right. What killed FxOS was not a lack of wrapper to run Android apps (we actually got one that worked).
What makes or break a Mobile OS is the availability of the key apps for the market you're going after: whatsapp, FB, Twitter, etc. (that varies based on the region).
I don't think you ever saw the one I'm talking about. It was done in collaboration with a partner and was never released. Also, lawyers were involved ;)
It didn't work; third party developers saw that a Windows app could serve both the Windows and OS/2 markets and focused all their energy on their Windows app, usually not bothering to write an OS/2 version at all. The result was that Windows' big moat -- its application library -- actually got deeper. IBM's big plan to kill Windows ended up cementing its position as a dominant platform.