Put it this way - do you honestly believe that Microsoft Research laid the groundwork for Android?

No, that would be Apple.

Linux user [...] everything comes without strings attached

Therein lies the rub.

Point is, he has exposed their lies and it made the rounds on all tech news sites. His researched compelled an FTC investigation.

What have you done?

I'm not really sure what they could do at this point to turn the ship around.

Much like Microsoft they sat on their ass for the last 5 years. I think it's too late for them, as it was the case with Nokia. At least you know that Nokia has a foothold in the consumer market with some smartphones, a ton of burners and a fairly strong brand.

Blackberry is synonymous with corporate and boring. It's a glorified pager for rapidly-declining business segment. There is virtually no enthusiasm in the platform and mainstream consumers don't even think of Blackberries as smartphones.

Instead of fixing the godawful BlackberryOS and wooing developers they go and create a 7-inch picture frame without any compelling features. Then they get offended after every tech blog ridicules the product.

In my opinion, RIM will continue to decline until it becomes a manufacturer like General Dynamics with products like Sectera Edge (the one Obama uses). Niche products for niche markets. The money is in the mainstream, consumer segment.

I studied 2 years of chess in Armenia, beginning from grade 4 in a 10 year secondary system. Of course, this was during Soviet times and you were allowed to choose from a range of subjects. It wasn't compulsory. My grades in other subjects improved dramatically as a result.

Really glad this is happening.

Consider the source.

Reputable in the context of this dumb article means "Firms that paid Reputation Institute" to put them on the Reputable list.

Did you know that Yeti has the biggest carbon footprint?

I have it on good authority that the green pigs in Angry Birds represent the console gaming industry.

Rovio has been employing the highly controversial Neuromotor programming methods in their blockbuster game to turn regular players against consoles and big gaming conglomerates.

Anyway, spread the word.

They're playing the nice little guy who give everything for free. Even slashdotters love them because it's free.

That's the biggest myth in tech world, the idea that end-user payments determine whether a service is paid or not.

Here's the fact: Google doesn't give anything away for "free." With most of its services you are the product being sold to advertisers.

Apple's product placement has gotten out of hand in recent years. Everywhere in coffee shops, airports, college campuses, and libraries you see the glowing Apple logo. The shareholders should really ask tough questions why Apple is wasting so much money paying these people to use their products.

The worst example of product placement is probably at the malls. They have this giant space allocated for the sole purpose of flaunting the shining logo filled to the brim with Apple-only computer gear. Yes, the Apple store is the mother of all product placements. And these stores are full of people who are paid by the company to stand there and fiddle with MacBooks and iPads.

Dell, Gateway and HP would never do something like this. They're ethical when it comes to clean competition.

DOJ needs to investigate.

Except that neither city of birth nor SSN are indicators of citizenship / residency.

This reminds me of the wifi data gathering operation where they amassed all this information "by mistake."

MacBook Air comes with Flash storage. Apple has said it themselves they are moving in that direction where SSDs would become the norm.

I have to admit, that's pretty "gangsta"

This is MP3 wars all over again. Steady platform growth and incremental feature updates is what benefits Apple and leaves a trail of iKillers in its path.

While Android Tablet companies are trying to blow their wad on a single device that's spec'd out with last week's technology, Apple is more interested in investing into long-term platform development, rather than doing unnecessary weekly hardware refreshes. "Tegra 2. Flavor of the week!" Who cares? Not the majority of people.

The important takeaway from this is that it's a marathon, not a sprint. This is where Motorola, Toshiba, Samsung, et al are failing. They don't give a shit about "openness" or "Android." They want to ship a number of devices this quarter, forget about it and then ship some more next quarter. Especially when they're not making any money from updates or app sales. Any bugfixes, updates, recalls, or any type of customer interaction is cutting into their already razor-thin margins.

Apple has healthy margins so it's better for them to keep providing updates to old hardware. It's all about the platform.

Born out of wedlock.

None of these Android ODMs care about growing and nurturing the platform whether it comes to constant updates or application compatibility. It's only market growth in raw numbers with the thinnest of margins, but that's just a consequence of dumping bargain-basement hardware into the stores by truckloads to see what sticks. See: Augens, Streaks, Galaxy Tab, and whatever Archos is doing.

On the mobile phone front if you pick up any two Android phones you'll see completely different methodologies, bizarre UI conventions, half-done features that exist for no logical reason for the sake of filling out checkboxes on spec sheets.

Despite this, Android phones took off because a) there was a vacuum of other more coherent, non-iOS platforms and b) because carriers subsidize the cost of the hardware and everyone needs a phone. It's an essential device.

Tablets face a much harder battle because majority of consumers are unwilling to sign a contract for a non-essential, secondary devices. Note the historically flaccid Netbook sales coupled with subsidies. This is especially true when most people have prior contracts with their phones. Having 2 mobile contracts doesn't quite gel.

Motorola XOOM's pricing came out today at $800 USD with additional, carrier specific caveats. You'd be insane to shell out that much money for a 1st gen, untested device with no compelling app ecosystem vis-Ã-vis iPad/2.

My belief is that the market is wide open right now and the second place is still up for grabs. Could be HP, could be Microsoft's new WP7 thing (if they get their heads out of their ass), or Android.

But just showing up with a tablet is not enough. You need to have healthy margins, curated app ecosystem, and platform continuity. iOS provides that. Android is too fragmented at the moment to pull it off. Sad thing is, Google is unwilling to exert any control and clean up their cluttered, spam-ridden marketplace or force these manufacturers into shipping devices without silly skins.

It's been said before that Android is a meta-platform, and I tend to agree with that. This gives hope to other OSes into jumping into the fray and becoming second to Apple. I truly believe that iPad has an iPod-like lock on the tablets for years to come (check above about subsidies).