[l3db3tt3r]

I don't think Samsung has the same 'fanboy' base as Apple does. And as AndrewDucker pointed out above, HTC was the dominant android name some time ago, who's to say another hardware giant like Sony or LG isn't the next android giant.

Furthermore Samsung isn't in the software business, its in the hardware business. Unless they find some giant profitable reason to fork and diversify into becoming a software business also, I see no reason why they would not simply keep riding the innovation coming out of google.

[glasshead969]

I don't think what ever fanboy base apple has is really significant. Sure they are more than what any other company has. But at 400 million users, it is not just fanboys buying apple products.

2 years back, it was a smaller and different market. Samsung has established brand now and has more power on android. They are moving around 100 million phones a year now. It's not the same market. Samsung doesn't need to do much to fork android. They recently announced a new wallet API for Samsung devices. If developer start doing apps for Samsung specific API and devices that's all they need. If those become popular enough that's a huge barrier for other OEM's to copy.

Few years back google forced Motorola from using a competing maps service. I don't think they can force Samsung from using or creating non google services.

[l3db3tt3r]

I was not aware of the Samsung wallet API. That's an interesting move. However, I wonder if that isn't more of a hardware-software security piece (for financial transactions) then an outright play into the wallet marketplace?