The article assume smartphone makers will continue to battle on hardware for tiny margin and let Google handles the software. That is possible, as we see with

The article assume smartphone makers will continue to battle on hardware for tiny margin and let Google handles the software. That is possible, as we see with Amazon, that they focus on their software ecosystem and keep Google largely out of the picture. That is not as unlikely as it seems, the Nexus line and Amazon have broken the taboo against cheap quality hardware and that is like a red carpet for the cheap chinese makers. Hopefully the current manufacturers will want to avoid a second serving of the Windows OEM market, so they may decide to focus on their software ecosystem instead. That is the best scenario, one where Microsoft and RIM both will have a chance to bring diversity. The market is too young to settle on a single OS.