I feel like this unrest among device manufacturers and carriers is the main reason why an alternative Android stack (With Bing Search/Maps and Amazon AppStore,

I feel like this unrest among device manufacturers and carriers is the main reason why an alternative Android stack (With Bing Search/Maps and Amazon AppStore, and possibly some input from Facebook) might be a success. Google can effectively kill off this effort by making next versions of Android close-source but that would heavily tarnish their reputation. So I feel like it's very unlikely. Google can effectively keep them half-a-version behind, though by giving an access to a next Android version to a limited group of "blessed" manufacturers but they still have to release at least the GPL-covered portions of source code when those new devices become available for consumers. This is usually some low-level stuff (changes to Linux kernel and maybe some device-integration code), so Amazon & co. don't have to maintain their own stack of device APIs which is a big win for them. On an application level, though, I doubt that as the platform matures being one version behind is a big issue, and Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook can provide effective substitutions for Google software and services and can bring up a compelling UI to attract consumers.