[citation][nom]wildkitten[/nom]No, what he is saying is Google is in a precarious position. They may have more of the market, but 8 billion in revenue is a fraction of Apple's 73 billion. That gives Apple much more capital to innovate with. He also is pointing out that Google could be in danger of Android becoming associated with another brand name like Samsung rather than being with Google.I think he is also right about people not as loyal to Android as Apple fans are to Apple devices. I know a lot of people that use Android phones, and I use one myself, and none of us feel a need to have our next device be an Android. In fact, the fragmentation is making me seriously consider a Windows Phone next year. But the people I know who use an iPhone are dedicated Apple fans. That may be made fun of here, but brand loyalty is a huge thing for a company.[/citation]
Google gets it's revenue elsewhere, it doesn't need the closed ecosystem model of Apple to make money.
Brand loyalty? Thank god for the lack of it, because that's the fire that drives innovation. If ALL Android customers would be blindly loyal to Samsung, for instance, Samsung would have no reason to continuously push the envelope for innovation. They would rest assured on their laurels, just look at what Apple did (they stop being the innovators because they didn't need to; their customers were snatched for good, enslaved by a closed system where they HAD to buy Apple products, or risk losing all their invested apps).
Last but not least, brand loyalty towards Google is NOT similar to loyalty towards a phone manufacturer. If you have a Gmail account, or if you use Google as your main search engine, then yes, that's loyalty to them, but you can use a Samsung, HTC, Motorola, LG, or any other Android phone and still meaning you're loyal to Google, because all these use Android OS.