[conite]

Nope. Duopolies are bad.

By what metric? Do you have a study?

Two companies with unspeakable wealth and the motivation to outdo each other can maximise innovation - unlikely for a bunch of smaller players.

Look at the USA and the USSR. Two superpowers with massive resources and an intense desire to outdo the other drove us into space, and to the moon. A large number of smaller powers would not have been able to do that - or would at least not been motivated to do so.

[app_Developer]

Nope. Duopolies are bad. Cartels hate free markets, and Free markets hate cartels, - i think that might sum it up.

No, duopolies are not necessarily bad. They can be bad and they can cause damage, but sometimes they are actually efficient and sometimes they are the natural outcome of a free market.

Consumers have a choice of phones. They used to choose Symbian and BBOS and some Windows CE. Today they choose iOS and Android. In the future it may be something else if and when someone builds something truly amazing and disruptive.

[i_plod_an_dr_void]

By what metric? Do you have a study?

Two companies with unspeakable wealth and the motivation to outdo each other can maximise innovation - unlikely for a bunch of smaller players.

Look at the USA and the USSR. Two superpowers with massive resources and an intense desire to outdo the other drove us into space, and to the moon. A large number of smaller powers would not have been able to do that - or would at least not been motivated to do so.

Actually you'll find the drive to the moon probably wouldn't have happened without German Scientists.. (after the soviets occupied the East of Germany). and it kind of really was about building military defensive capabilities for the USA, when they were alarmed by initial Soviet developments (definitely a geopolitical issue - Free Market/Democracies vs State control of market and peoples)

[thurask]

No, duopolies are not necessarily bad. They can be bad and they can cause damage, but sometimes they are actually efficient and sometimes they are the natural outcome of a free market.

Consumers have a choice of phones. They used to choose Symbian and BBOS and some Windows CE. Today they choose iOS and Android. In the future it may be something else if and when someone builds something truly amazing and disruptive.

I don't miss the days of different phone chargers for every brand. But having to make only one or two is impinging on their right to be contrarian, so...

[i_plod_an_dr_void]

No, duopolies are not necessarily bad. They can be bad and they can cause damage, but sometimes they are actually efficient and sometimes they are the natural outcome of a free market.

Consumers have a choice of phones. They used to choose Symbian and BBOS and some Windows CE. Today they choose iOS and Android. In the future it may be something else if and when someone builds something truly amazing and disruptive.

The consortium or cartel of major manufacturers along with Google quickly gobbled up most of the global market - a cartel of manufacturers is not a natural happening in a marketplace, plus the lock-up of apps makers to just two platforms- again the central issue. The choice of phones is from the cartel.

Google + Open Handset Alliance (Quallcomm one of those members - does that name ring a bell?) 84 members (including manufacturers, originalluy 34 members) ...its the cartel thingy that is the sticky wicket about upsetting the free market. No doubt creating a standard and advancing technology was a good thing, but did it roll out in a manner that assured no competitor would have a chance of surviving its onslaught?

The healthy pre-existing non-cartel free market included :Apple, Microsoft, Nokia (Symbian), HP (formerly Palm), Samsung Electronics / Intel (Tizen, bada), and BlackBerry.

[i_plod_an_dr_void]

Why did BB10 fail to take off like fire in the marketplace? It had what, a year to fly (compare that to Google and Apple) or fail? The Duopoly was pretty much effectively already in place in the 2013-2014 bb10 launch time frame....simple answer....no one is challenging why a small app maker might not think of developing an app (although apparantly it wasn't nearly as hard to convert an android app as the 'experts' here are suggesting) for a much smaller market (not 0 by the way), because the overwhelming players size dictated where the apps go. However Bigger app makers could have sustained multiple platforms, but some wouldn't/didn't. Hard to go up against the Cartel.

[kvndoom]

Cartels?

Cell phone cartels???

HAHHAHAHAHAHAAA!! Wow you can't make this stuff up!

"That's a nice BlackBerry you have there bud. Be a shame if something happened to it."

"I woke up this morning and there was a headless app in my bed!"

"Tim Cook is Keyser Soze!"

I'm here to get girls. Straight up, that's exactly why I'm here.

[BigBadWulf]

"I woke up this morning and there was a headless app in my bed!"

[anon(10065266)]

Nope. Duopolies are bad. Cartels hate free markets, and Free markets hate cartels, - i think that might sum it up.

A better way to sum it up: Google and Apple succeed by making products that people choose to buy.

Neither Google nor Apple have any duty to ensure that other players can compete.

[conite]

The healthy pre-existing non-cartel free market included :Apple, Microsoft, Nokia (Symbian), HP (formerly Palm), Samsung Electronics / Intel (Tizen, bada), and BlackBerry.

Healthy for who?

Since 2010, only iOS generated any money from mobile. The rest enjoyed unspeakable losses.

[i_plod_an_dr_void]

Cartels?
"I woke up this morning and there was a headless app in my bed!"
"Tim Cook is Keyser Soze!"

The point was the industry consortium formed to deal with Apple's success. The only thing is what did this do to the other existing players, and were there shennanigans about the business of the "open" consortium....but I digress, to your points:

Yes, Tim Cook is no Keyser Soze, Keyser never had a special boyfriend. But Apple's CEO Jobs? Way back, I think it (Apple) was once alledged to have attempted to conspire with the head at Palm to not to raid each other's engineer's .In other words, refuse to hire each other's engineers if they wanted/needed to change jobs, to which it was alledged the Palm rep refused, and added that it was likely illegal to propose such a pact. Interesting reading I came across not too long ago.

(if it pains you to read that long, but interesting story just search for "illegal")
http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/5/306...ortem#comments

[i_plod_an_dr_void]

Cartels?
HAHHAHAHAHAHAAA!! Wow you can't make this stuff up!

Ding!

[eshropshire]

Let's start a petition! !

[i_plod_an_dr_void]

Let's start a petition! !

I dunno...a petition might get swallowed up by Google, and added to Android O-oh,
or get app'd and then only get a thousand down-lows in the Play store, or worse get censored from the iTunes store for non-compliance with political/social Apple orthodoxy (through its quality control processes) !.

In these cases don't suits work better than street clothes?

...or Does BlackBerryWorld have a protest app (I know they have that slap-app) , that lets your phone shout protest type things in unison with other blackberries in the crowd, while you continue to play that game, watch that video or finish that important email? (So you can be both an effective netizen and get that project deadline met on time)

[i_plod_an_dr_void]

btw....dibbs on the patent for that protest app.

[BigBadWulf]

I wish I had enough tinfoil to survive this nonsense. You've expressed your opinion, and it's time to end the discussion.