I would love for Microsoft to launch it's own Android-compatible ecosystem, starting from the open source base of Android and building alternatives to Google's proprietary technology (location & mapping, email, browsing, app store etc.). They are one of the few companies who have the capacity to do that and already have products in place to cover 80% of what is required.
While I'm not exactly a fan of Microsoft, there is nothing I dread more than a closed platform controlled by a single company, and Google is moving more and more aggressively in that direction. There is now a whole industry dedicated to installing hacked Google products on devices Google does not approve of.
I'm always baffled whenever someone comes up with these wacky Google Android replacement suggestions. It's as if they selectively choose to ignore history and the billions, that would be futilely squandered, pursuing something that has absolutely zero chance of ever succeeding or even being profitable. I'm not sure what fantasy world you reside in, but replacing Google's proprietary apps and services with Microsoft's proprietary apps is not only a significantly less value proposition for the consumer, but there's absolutely no incentive for the consumer or OEM to even remotely consider such a platform. You will never have the ecosystem and you will never have the developer support and whatever developers and OEM's you do manage to bribe over they'll quickly abandon the platform once the payola dries up.
>There is now a whole industry dedicated to installing hacked Google products on devices Google does not approve of.
I think you meant to say there was until Google closed that loophole.
While I'm not exactly a fan of Microsoft, there is nothing I dread more than a closed platform controlled by a single company, and Google is moving more and more aggressively in that direction. There is now a whole industry dedicated to installing hacked Google products on devices Google does not approve of.