Excerpt from a Jean-Louis Gassée mobile market snapshot
Regardless, Google was right, the smartphone wars are on: This is the new PC, only bigger because it’s smaller, more ubiquitous, more connected, more personal. Google doesn’t want anyone (but themselves) to control the smartphone market the way Microsoft dominated the PC; they don’t want anyone to stand between the viewer and the ads they serve up. With Android, they engineered a Trojan Horse: The ‘‘free and open” smartphone OS came with mandatory Google applications that guarantee the vital revenue-generating exposure to advertising. As Bill Gurley explains in his memorable “The Freight Train That Is Android” post, Google wants its smartphone OS to flatten everything in its path — and they’re succeeding: Android now has more 50% of the smartphone market. That dominant position was taken from Nokia, the former king; from Palm, now deceased; from RIM, sinking fast; and from Microsoft, struggling to get in third place with its truly modern but late to the game Windows Phone 7, this after losing the market because of its creaky Windows Mobile.
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