OHA reality check from The Economist
In recent years there have been many grand alliances in the mobile-phone industry. These have often been formed in order to neutralise a market leader, but as often as not have failed to achieve anything. Google's new alliance includes some big names. But Samsung, the number three handset-maker, always joins everything; Motorola, the number two, is in trouble and could do with a helping hand from Google; the same is true of Sprint, an American wireless operator. The heavyweights—Nokia, Vodafone, AT&T, Verizon Wireless, not to mention Apple and Microsoft—are conspicuous by their absence.
Unusually for The Economist, however, the article concludes with a factual error:
Google is prepared to spend huge sums to make Android a success, since it hopes to pipe ads onto Android phones. This is the latest example of its strategy to make more money in its main business—online advertising—by opening up other markets. Recently it unveiled OpenSocial, a set of software standards for social networks, which is also intended to create more outlets for online ads (and to keep Facebook, a leading social network, from becoming a serious competitor for them). Will this strategy work? Investors seem to think so. This week Google's shares hit a new high, making it America's most valuable firm.
The error part: Microsoft is still worth > $100B more than Google at the moment.
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