You are like someone trying to start a restaurant who is asking the web for advice on the menu when you should be focusing how good the location is and the rent. Your lack of business acumen (even compared to your technical expertise!) is what is going to kill you. Is your idea anything more compelling than getting hits on pages decorated with adsense crap? On the evidence you're going to get fucked either way. LAMP is probably the better bet but if you go into the cloud you'll be paying for those clicks: dearly if only a small percentage are revenue generating. MSFT is not necessarily inferior technically, but it's targeted at Enterprises with deep pockets, not 1-person startups: you will go broke with the up-front costs.

Don't let me stand in the way of your dislike of Apple... my point was evolving handheld technology tends to become quickly available to all manufacturers, so many spec advantages are transient. As for PowerPC, in retrospect that would be judged a failed strategy. Those machines were never price or performance competitive, and served to marginalize the platform. And all because (legend has it) Intel pissed off Jobs in the 80's and he held the grudge for 20 years.

The market will decide iPhone vs Android, but there's another reason "specmanship" is pointless. It is a leapfrog game for things like screen size, memory, etc. The Android phones came out nearly half a year later than 3GS... do you really think the next iPhone won't likewise advance? Ditto for RiM, Palm (if they stay in business), etc. For the most part other companies are developing the most fundamental technologies, and handheld manufacturersare just riding the curves.

...only let them read the San Francisco Chronicle

This is what Zuckerberg should be having nightmares about. http://www.businessweek.com/1999/99_17/b3626167.ht m