"What IBM did was to create a piece of hardware which everyone bought into. And built it out of generic enough parts that it could be cloned. I'm not sure who t

"What IBM did was to create a piece of hardware which everyone bought into. And built it out of generic enough parts that it could be cloned. I'm not sure who the equivalent player this time around." -- I don't think there is an equivalent to IBM in the handset market. IBM had a powerful steamroller when it came to branding, sales and cash - most people hopped on the PC Compatible standard (including DOS) because it was the "sure thing". Not because DOS was inherently more open than, say, CP/M. Google has a similar steamroller (at least in the respect that to a lot of people, Google = Internet) but unless most people are demanding a "Google Phone" then handset makers aren't going to fall over themselves to hand over their lunch to google. Google and the developer community will have to build something pretty incredible and build a lot of mind-share with the general public, I think.