Your right, but the routes to market for hardware devices are quite limited. It's slightly easier to get tablets into market, but the major OEM's are very cons

Your right, but the routes to market for hardware devices are quite limited. It's slightly easier to get tablets into market, but the major OEM's are very conservative. For Phones the issue is that people buy hardware from their network provider - there are very few other routes to market. First, the network operators primarily focus on 'general' consumer users so they are conservative about the options they choose. Second their scale means that unless they believe they can sell _millions_ of units there's nothing in it for them. Finally, the rest of the market for mobiles is completely locked down - there are only a few alternative routes to market. All the software vendors (ie Mozilla and Canonical) have been trying to work with alternative (primarily online) providers. The raft of issues is massive and far beyond the essential problem of creating software that's good enough!