Microsoft had one trick that it played over and over. Licensing its software to hardware makers, not selling directly to consumers. Shrink-wrapped Windows sales are excessively low for an OS that dominates +90% of the market. The majority of Windows users get it pre-bundled with their hardware, very few consciously choose Windows. In many ways, Windows chooses the user and not the other way around.
Just like Microsoft, Google is a one-trick pony. Microsoft has Windows and Office. Google has its ad business and search. Both use their monopoly in one market to dominate another. Just like Microsoft, Google exists to stifle innovation. If it were any other company, Android would have bankrupted it, just as the XBox or Zune or Bing would have bankrupted Microsoft. Google is using its ad revenue to undercut other companies and kill them, the same way Microsoft uses its Windows and Office money to subsidize its failures just to get into a market, undercut them by offering a lesser quality product for near-free and crush their competitor and create yet another monopoly. That's exactly what Google is doing with Android. Google earns nothing from Android, they give it away to destroy others. The OEMs won't develop their own OS since they can get Android for free and those who dare to go against Google's will and develop their own will find themselves locked out of the market, unable to compete. By offering their lesser quality OS for near-free, they will kill all the good quality OSes that exist or might emerge. This was Google's goal.
Unfortunately for Google this isn't working as good as they hoped. Microsoft is collecting royalties on Android, rendering Android costly for hardware vendors. Also companies like Baidu and Amazon are using Android to compete against Google and cutting Google off of any profits that they might make. Android might stifle innovation as Google intended but it will also compete against itself, leaving Google with an expensive endeavor that can never be truly monetized and if we are lucky Google will slowly distance itself away from it.
Unfortunately for Google this isn't working as good as they hoped. Microsoft is collecting royalties on Android, rendering Android costly for hardware vendors. Also companies like Baidu and Amazon are using Android to compete against Google and cutting Google off of any profits that they might make. Android might stifle innovation as Google intended but it will also compete against itself, leaving Google with an expensive endeavor that can never be truly monetized and if we are lucky Google will slowly distance itself away from it.
