[124816]

> The software needs to be tied to the hardware because the carriers are completely incompetent at software

AFAIK, the real reason is that there is no standardized design for phones, whereas most desktop/laptop/servers look basically the same to the OS.

[wvenable]

Smartphones are remarkably similar. I can run Android on my older Windows Mobile phone with almost all the functions working (WiFi, phone, bluetooth, etc) because the hardware isn't vastly different. There are only a small number of mobile chipsets. Considering the huge variation of hardware a PC OS must handle, mobiles should be much easier.