Ubuntu for Android Will be Demoed at Computex

You're excited by Apple and Microsoft, and maybe RIM (though it looks like they're not going to be around much longer)?

Both Apple and Google (and finally, after much time, Microsoft, but probably much too late) have figured out that apps are the thing that makes mobile devices successful. No apps, and no one wants to buy into your platform. It's the very same thing that's kept Windows so successful on the desktop even though Windows itself is a POS: no one wanted to give up Windows because it'd also mean giving up their favorite or business-critical applications. Apple made a mobile device that was easy to use, and the hipsters thought it was great, but then they added the App Store and suddenly everyone wanted one. Then Google decided to do the same thing with Android, and they too have been very successful. Finally, MS did a "me three!" and aren't doing as well, because the app developers already are annoyed with having to make two versions of everything, and many don't feel like making three versions, especially when the third one has such low marketshare. They also don't bother much with RIM, even though they have some kind of app store too finally. Throw in a fifth one with the Ubuntu mobile platform or whatever they end up calling it, and it's going to be dead in the water; if the app developers aren't wasting their time with Windows Phone OS, what makes you think they're going to spend any time on yet another small market?

As with many things, it's the first mover advantage at work here. Google was lucky to be as successful as it was, since their product was a copy of Apple's, but they made some parts of it much better (no premium price tag like Apple stuff, and also they gave it away to handset and device makers and allowed them to customize it, something Windows Phone doesn't allow, so Android is very attractive to the mfgrs), so they were able to do well in providing an alternative to iOS with clear advantages over it. What clear advantage would anything else have?

At this point, I think anyone trying to get into this market would do better making an improved version of Android, which could still access and use the Google Play store for apps. However, the legality of that is questionable (there's probably some licensing problems there, Google might not allow non-Android devices to access their service), but also, where's the money? Google doesn't even make any real money on Android OS, it gives it away for free so it can sell more advertising services, and probably also get a cut of the sales on the Play Store. Anyone else trying to make a mobile OS has to compete with that, and that's a losing proposition. Where are they going to make money? If they charge for the OS, they're competing against free, and the only people who'd be interested are those who simply hate Google (like you apparently, judging by your prior posts). Well, people who hate Google enough to pay significantly more money for a device already have an alternative: it's called the iPhone. They even have another alternative that's just as cheap as Android phones: they're called Windows Phones, and they're not selling. I'm sorry, there's not a big enough market of people who 1) hate Google, AND 2) hate Apple, AND 3) hate Microsoft, AND 4) hate RIM/Blackberry, to support a company that wants to get into the handset market, and has to both partner with big device makers like HTC and Samsung, and convince the carriers to sell their phone in stores and kiosks all over the developed world, to make the whole proposition economically feasible. You could certainly put together a "community-supported phone OS" like CyanogenMod (which is really just a modification of Android IIRC) which interested people can install on their phones themselves, but that's not going to support a decent-sized company.