> That suggests most the growth in “Android” numbers is coming from no-name vendors selling devices in countries such as China, using devices that don’t support Google’s development of the OS (via ads or search services) nor even expand the platform in any meaningful way that could benefit Android users.
>
> Samsung, the most noteworthy Android smartphone developer and the only licensee to ship a well-known Android tablet, just [reported](http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/28/samsung-idINTOE70O03F20110128) its weakest profits in six quarters, and was hit by reports that it had overstated the sales of its Galaxy Tab to consumers. A new crop of tablets running Android 3.0 will deliver an entirely new user interface unfamiliar to existing Android smartphone users.
via [appleinsider.com](http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/02/01/google_android_counts_include_rival_chinese_variants.html)
If you want to win the numbers game, it helps to fake the numbers. Google is getting credit for millions of “Android” sales that aren’t Android devices at all. If you’re going to count Tapas and OMS devices as Android devices, you might as well count any Linux derivative device as an Android sale, too. Heck, why not throw in RIM sales, while you’re at it?
Meanwhile, Samsung is using the old Microsoft trick of shipping millions of units to stores and counting them all as sold, even though the vast majority of those units are doomed to be part of a fire sale when the Galaxy Tab 2 is debuted in a few months.
All of this, because Wall Street and most of the rest of the business world is still caught up in this ridiculous notion of “market share” as the be all and end all of success in the technology sector. And Google is playing them all for suckers.
How long before the bottom drops out of Android and the world realizes that there’s no real platform there? How long before people take a look around on the streets and on the subway and realize that there’s no way Android is selling as well as everyone claims?
For the ninetieth time, people, history is not repeating itself. The business model of Microsoft is over; the tech world is nothing like it was in the 80s and 90s. There will probably not be one dominant player in the mobile space. Instead, there will be many different choices, which is great for everyone.
Meanwhile, Apple will take all the profit while every other company fights over the last few shekels.
