@Eadon - openness selling Android
Bullshit. As you say, geeks like Android because it is open, but that has had little or nothing to do with its success among the masses. If geek recommendations and openness could sell stuff, Linux would have more than 1% of the desktop market (and before you blame Microsoft, since the consent decree there have been Linux products available from Dell, for instance, but they never sell much)
When someone buys a phone because of what their friends have, they are generally buying the same phone or same brand. They see their friend's GS3, think it's cool, and get one for themselves. People recommend models or brands, they don't recommend "get an Android", unless they're talking to someone else who would understand what that means - and if you think even half of Android owners know they have an Android phone, you're hanging out with too many propeller heads and not enough ordinary people.
If Android was not open source, if it had instead been based on a BSD kernel and rather than being freely available to OEMs cost them say $1 to license, it would be just as successful as it was today. The OEMs would still license it, people buying based on what their friends have would still do so, and it would still dominate the market just as much.
BTW, your idea that Microsoft gets bad karma via the patent lawsuits is ridiculous. The average person may have heard about Apple's lawsuits in passing but very few will have heard about Microsoft's. Even if they have heard of Apple or Microsoft's lawsuits they have no idea what they're about, and certainly don't think "oh noes, a closed vendor is attacking an open vendor, I have to support openness by buying Android". Go find a dozen average non-tech people and ask them about the Microsoft/Android lawsuits and see if a single one knows what the hell you're talking about. Some won't even know what Android is, despite having an Android phone in their pocket! They don't know their phone runs Android, they know it as a Samsung.
