It actually makes a lot of sense to share the underlying code, more so now that the mobile phones and consoles have a lot of power.
But, I don't think it makes sense in the UI department: Please MS, for the love of the flying spaghetti monster, give each of the devices an appopiate interface for its use cases. You like copying Apple, don't you? They didn't put the iOS UI on OS X. Copy them on that!

+1 I guess the popularity thing is due to Eclipse having much better commercial support. I mean, it has official plugins (developed or sanctioned by the maker of the technology in question) for almost every framework you can think of whereas Netbeans has much fewer official plugins.
Anyway, I like Netbeans much better than Eclipse. It has fewer options and that might make it less flexible but seems to be more focused on getting things working fast and with little effort. It's much more intuitive (IMHO) than Eclipse. In Eclipse everything seems to require lots of configuration.
Interestingly, on the Gnome/KDE dichotomy, I stand on KDE's side which is more complex and configurable (i.e. more similar to Eclipse).

For what I can see in my social circle, Spain has a great number of Android phones, some iPhones and almost nothing else. There's some people holding on to their old Blackberries and very few people who use Windows Phone.
What I mean is that Android is pretty entrenched here, much more in the lower end smartphones segment, and I don't think Firefox OS has a good chance of succeding. I believe most Spaniards, faced with the choice of selecting a cheap smartphone would rather choose what they know, and that is Android.
Anyway, I wish success to Firefox OS, since I like its concept and more competitors is always good for consumers.

...GOES to sleep.

Or you and your hacker friends, could, you know, just vote with your wallet and not buy this Xbox console.
You don't have a deity-given right to get a second-hand-games-friendly game console from Microsoft. Fortunately, there are alternatives, and buying them instead of the Xbox can harm Microsoft without any hacking.

Are you sure about this?
European cell phone market started a similar transition a while ago and I haven't seen any decreases in phone prices. Granted, it can be difficult two relate the two but I haven't seen it happening anyway.
Also, I disagree too with what you say about phones not having decreased in price in the last few years: Yes, the top phones still cost 600$ or more but this year top of line phone also has 2x the power in CPU and GPU, and a better screen (among others) than the last year's top phone. So yes, you're getting more for your money although probably not in the form you wanted (a price reduction).

Well, this is precisely why do this: They want easy money. Besides that, I guess they also do it because it removes the pressure of competing with their own previous versions. Microsoft's worse competitor have been their previous versions for years too.

Please, someone mod parent up. I can't believe people are so selfish: These sites give you content in exange for ads, if you don't like the deal just don't go there.

Could that be the reason that Photosphere is not in the Galaxy s4 despite the fact it has Android 4.2? Or maybe is Samsung trying to distance themselves from Android. It seems Android wasn't even mentioned in the s4 presentation

Because of these reasons Microsoft is pushing software subscriptions HARD. e.g.: Office 2013: There's the traditional version pay-once-run-forerver and there's Office 365 the free-upgrades-of-office-while-you-pay version. Everywhere I see office ads these days I see them pushing the subcription version hard.
I guess it won't be long until they try the same with Windows.

I'd mod you up if I had points. This! a million times this!. Microsoft even, against every customer wishes, changed the start menu for a screen which looks exactly like their mobile phone.
They're totally trying to do what they're acussing Google of doing. I guess they're just bitter they're not winning this time.

Wee, of course they understand, it's just that they pretend not to understand because that's what's been dictated from upper management since they believe it'll make them more money.
It's the same as when Mark Zuckerberg says "privacy is a thing of the past": They want to make what makes them money seem normal and cool ...because it makes them money

It might not be at the same level of the 3gs running iOS 6, but Samsung have published 2 major updates to the Galaxy SII (2.3->4.0->4.1). An update to 4.2 is rumored.
As I said, that support might not be as good as Apple's but it's the best in the Android world.
Anyway I also think that Samsung waste too many time releasing too many pointless Galaxy Android phones

You can't be sure that Samsung is going to update the OS but AFAIK they've been pretty good with updates so far. At least regarding flagship models.
The galaxy s2 was released on 2011 with Gingerbread (2.3), so far it has received two major updates: Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0) and Jelly Bean 4.1. There's even rumors they will release Jelly Bean 4.2 for the s2.
Meanwhile, most phones from other Android device makers have received one major update (if any).
So Apple is better, but among the Android manufacturers Samsung are among the best.

In my Samsung Android phone (s2) you can, in fact, encrypt the SD card. I don't know if it's a standard Android feature though.