After Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility, its cock block of Acer’slaunch of an Aliyun OS-based device and Samsung’snatural-disaster level of damages awarded to Apple, it seems that many companies arewarming up to the idea of limiting their exposure to Google-dominated product lineups.While the Android OS claims to be “open source,” a technical term for“take the code and do anything you want to make something new as long as you releasethe new code,” the Aliyun move showed that Google’s OS ain’t justanother Linux -- it comes with more strings attached than a marionette orgy. The latest news is that Chinese mobile manufacturer Huawei is creating its own mobile OSas an Android alternative. While it is eager to play this up as anything other thanhedging its bets, the writing is on the wall: The feel-good days of Android are over.It’s time for plan B. Not coincidentally, it was revealed this week thatSamsung’s making a mobile web browser. That’s Google’s chief partner inthe "take a bite out of Apple” crew looking to take a chomp at Google’sprimary source of cash: tracking people’s browsing habits. With friends like thesewe could be seeing a new set of frenemies for a nerdy version of Jersey Shore. Cue Amazon with its cap turned sideways, making its own maps app. Giventhat Apple’s iOS6 maps app launched to a press response that was one part Hindenburg and two partsFukushima, we have this message for Amazon: Good luck with that. For anyone looking tolaunch a new product against Google’s mature range of offerings, you are under amicroscope and basically set for failure right out of the door. Try copying Google’sgoodies, and you’ll end up like Microsoft’s Bing: an advertisement for why youshould really be using Google search. But Microsoft, with its set ofgood-enough competing products, is set to scoop up a lot of business from companies tiredof playing child to Google’s mom. Windows 8’s mobile success will likely bedue more to companies fearing Google’s dominance than the promise ofMicrosoft’s still app-less mobile OS. Without Bing, a mapping service and a browser,Huawei’s operating system will be no Windows 8 competitor. Microsoft, for all itslack of creativity, at least started aping Google early on. DespiteGoogle’s not-so-delicate nudging, this was all inevitable. When Apple was buildingMacOS X, it was extremely vulnerable to Microsoft squashing its shiny new operatingsystem by simply saying no to Office and Internet Explorer OS X ports, applications thatcompletely owned the internet at the time. None of that seems to matter now -- I’mtyping this with Apple’s Pages word processor, and IE for Mac is long since dead andmissed by about as many people who pine for their days with chicken pox. It may be hard toimagine an information landscape in which Google is just a mere tree in the forest, butI’m just starting to wonder why it’s taking so long. Continue Reading

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