I'm not sure how successful these phones will be if they don't have Google's permission to provide Google Play, and I can't imagine Google would give them that.
I agree. I think Google Play, more so it's mass of Android apps, is a big-ish draw for people. Although really it's only a handful of apps "real" people actually care about (Think Gmail, Twitter, Angry Birds etc...). However from a Google point of view, Samsung has a bit too much power for their liking... I see Google with Motorola, moving even more so into hardware and pushing their "pure" Android Nexus brand more and more. They've piggy backed on Samsung's Android marketing for a while and it's been good for both. But now they're too much of a threat to Android, like the article, potentially moving to a different OS that could further fragment the market.
I think mainly Samsung will wait a see how Windows Phone goes, to see if they change OS. Maybe even launch a Tizen or whatever OS phone to test the water before jumping the Android ship...
It's just like a real life version of Game Of Thrones... Game of Smartphones (maybe not...)
That has Amazon's massive content library as a draw, though. Samsung does have an app store, but since their Android phones come with Google Play, I don't know how well populated their own is.
The Kindle Fire is not a phone. Not having Google Maps/Gmail/Google Now/Google Chat/etc isn't that big of a deal on your reader or tablet, but it's a lot bigger deal on your phone.
Also current users of Samsung phones would be pretty upset if they bought a new one and couldn't download the apps they've already purchased via Google Play.
I think mainly Samsung will wait a see how Windows Phone goes, to see if they change OS. Maybe even launch a Tizen or whatever OS phone to test the water before jumping the Android ship...
It's just like a real life version of Game Of Thrones... Game of Smartphones (maybe not...)