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> It would be enough for me if it declined into the confused and nonelastic state Microsoft was in around the times of Vista. That was enough for Android to appear and take over, forcing a paradigm shift.

What? Android and Vista are on two different spaces. You are comparing mobileOS to a desktop OS?

Android didn't compete with microsoft. It competed with apple.

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Android might have been trying to compete with Apple, but for a decade before the iPhone, Windows CE was the de-facto choice on mobile devices where you actually wanted to accomplish something. I'd be more tempted to say that _both_ of them were trying to compete with Microsoft in the mobile space.

Yes, there was Palm and PSION before that, both of which I used heavily, but Windows CE had a massive marketplace for applications and seemed to coincide with WiFi and the web really taking off. This feels very odd to say, but mobile Internet Explorer was impressive - and even supported flash!

They cater to the same need, which is computing. I once heard that majority of this planet only browses Internet using a smartphone - if that's the case, Microsoft lost.

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