The interesting part about Microsoft is that they're quietly getting into phone design again. And the new ones are Android and they're Google Play certified.

The interesting thing about Android is that while enough of it is open source that you can make a working operating system without it, you need replacements for Google Play APIs, which are proprietary, so it's difficult to ensure 100% compatibility with Android without that, and when a company agrees to make Google-certified Android devices, they also agree they won't manufacture any AOSP-based devices that are not Google-certified for other companies.

Amazon found a supplier in China that wasn't making Google-certified Android, and used them to supply "Fire OS" tablets, but it's interesting that Microsoft hasn't gone this route.

Instead, Google is so powerful in this market that they forced a deal on Microsoft!

This certification includes some things that are awfully reminiscent of Microsoft itself in the 1990s when it took illegal measures to force Windows on its OEMs and make Internet Explorer the only browser on the computer, but we all know the government deliberately punted on US v. Microsoft and that no government in the developed world except the EU enforces its competition laws, so Google is getting away with it, at least in the US.

Well, okay, so the Google certification isn't _as_ onerous and illegal as Microsoft in the 90s. You _can_ have other apps on the phone, but you must include Google's and the Play Store, and they must be default and positioned front and center so if you include anything else, people will just go "Bleh, crapware!) and remove or disable it (and fair enough, a lot of it is, and certainly anything from Microsoft.).