> "the billion-dollar question is why mobile handset manufacturers bother to play ball with Mountain View at all." If the smartphone revolution has taught us a

> "the billion-dollar question is why mobile handset manufacturers bother to play ball with Mountain View at all." If the smartphone revolution has taught us anything, it should be that you don't just flip a switch and build a competitive smartphone OS. Microsoft and Palm both created very polished, capable, user-friendly and robust operating systems that have gone nowhere. The Android situation isn't all roses for all partners. But there's a considerable amount of work involved in even attempting a fork and a considerable amount of risk.