In the Desktop Operating System space, we all know what happened between Apple and Microsoft. While Apple tied their OS to their hardware, MS succeeded taking more of an open approach letting any device manufacturers bundle their OS. This resulted in an entire eco-system giving them greater distribution and eventually a monopoly. Though many believe Apple has a superior product, Microsoft won against Apple in the desktop market through distribution.

Now we have a new venue - Mobile OS. The mobile phone is proving to be the most important device as we carry it more than our laptops. While Microsoft & BlackBerry kind of dominated the not-so-smart-smartphones, the iPhone changed the market significantly and suddenly the mobile OS space got more interesting. It is probably fair to say that there is more activity in the Mobile OS space (iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, WebOS, Symbian etc) rather than Desktop OS space(Windows, Mac & Linux).

The bigger question now is, who will gain the distribution in the mobile market? Looks like Google is following Microsoft's pa