I would wager that within two years Samsung will be making more money on smart phones than Apple. Apple's profits are going backwards now, while Samsung is growing very quickly. I believe that's a trend that will continue.

Microsoft earns a lot more selling Windows and Windows server and surrounding products than all of the Linux vendors make supporting Linux combined (Redhat makes a mere $100m a year in profit for example).

Does that inherently imply anything about Linux? No.

What you're talking about is today (regarding Apple's profits). What I'm interested in is the trend of Android taking most of the market and what that'll mean in five years for Apple and the Android vendors. What it'll mean is: much like PC sales, Android sales will be dominated by 2 or 3 primary companies, with dozens of other vendors attempting to compete.

My opinion is that Apple is about to get hammered as the iPhone's market share collides with Android and loses. I believe within eight quarters their profit will fall from $40x billion to $25 billion annually, and they'll lose 1/3 of their existing market share while margins also keep falling.