Windows Phone Thoughts: Another 'Microsoft Should Make Its Own Phone' Article

"With the loss of the software customization and the lack of hardware variation, OEMs might find themselves with no effective means of establishing a brand or carving out a niche for themselves. Though they're supporting Windows Phone 7 right now, there's a good chance that they will lose interest once their hardware has been commoditized...This commoditization is, after all, what Microsoft wants: Redmond wants people to think of the phones, first and foremost, as Windows Phone 7 devices, and for the vendor differences to take a back seat. But unless the company can do something to keep the hardware companies sweet, it may find that they drop the platform in favor of one where they can do more to create their own identity: Android being the obvious contender."

Ars Technica weighs in and argues that Microsoft should copy the Apple model wholesale. To be fair, the reasoning is sound; the business model Microsoft is using with WP7 is a combination of Apple's closed ecosystem and the license-and-build model of Windows Mobile. The billion dollar question is: Is this approach the best of both worlds, or the worst? MS has already given up on the licensing model with their MP3 player efforts - upsetting both vendors and consumers in the process - and it's arguable that smartphones are more a consumer electronics market than a PC market. After all, it's not as if you can swap components in an existing device if you wanted to. On the other hand, the failure of the Kin will probably make MS sour to the go-it-alone idea for at least a couple of years to come. Thoughts, people?