"Vertical vs. open" argument really over-simplifies things.

Emerging mobile value chain has multiple links. According to Christensen framework, successful companies should control those links that matter. Not all of them. The important links are those where significant technical or business problems are being solved. This is where the value is created.

Apple needed vertical integration between phone hardware, software and services to create the breakthrough and enjoy the fruits.

Google followed with Android creating an "open interface" between hardware, software and services. This interface allows mixing and matching between hardware, software and services coming from different vendors. Such modular configuration will inevitably lead to commoditization.

The challenge moved to service creation and monetization. Is Google open on these value chain links? Not at all. Google aims to make/control everything here from server hardware to consumer apps and billing solutions. Google is only open where it makes business sense for them to be open. Not that different from Apple in the end.

Its too late for HP to control interface between device and its software – This specific problem is solved now and we are heading to commoditization in this area.

Sorry for lengthy answer….

However, later you say that MS may have some cool stuff. When that cool stuff arrives, Android and iPhone OS will be a couple more steps ahead, so they will always be chasing them. In any event MS is realizing that their salvation may only be in end-to-end as Android is rapidly cleaning up the licensing deals.

This market is not going to be about winner take all, but rather solutions that will eventually hew to open standards…even Apple never liked the iTunes DRM imposed on them by the studios. Lets see where book DRM goes….

So in this light HP has done the right thing to take their destiny in their own hands. And they get some valuable patents, which they will need in the inevitable barter.

I am rooting for the WebOS tablet, it should be as cool as the iPad, if not more. Now if only there was an open framework comparable to iTunes.

Totally agree with you: Microsoft has all the potential to get back in game. Interesting times ahead.

"best multitasking OS with good WebKit browser" is not really a differentiator for the mass non-technical market. Besides, none of them is unique compared to Android, iPhone OS 4.0 and Blackberry 6.

As for comparison with Microsoft, it's too early to write WP7 off. We should be expecting interesting times ahead.

Meanwhile, you got iPhone for the Apple crowd, Blackberry for the business one, Android for the people who wants a permissive system, Symbian for people who don't know what an OS is, and WP7 for the Windows/MSFT crowd in a near future. I love to see Palm doing well, but all that leaves few room for another contender.

Surely HP & webOS must be in a much better position than Microsoft and its Windows Phone 7. WP7 has a lousy browser based on IE7 from 2007. It can't multitask. It can't even copy-and-paste. It has no apps. It is rushed to market before the APIs and SDK are finished, weakening the type of apps that can be developed. Windows Phone 7 looks doomed. Despite Microsoft's size, it seems to be hapless and wayward in the mobile devices market.

Now if you believe Google's outlook for the future, web apps are the future. That puts webOS in a very good position.