Issues to consider include ease of deployment, managing backup and data access, support, security, network complexity, device management, operating system diversity, total cost of ownership and integration of various tablet platforms at the application, mobile device management process and system level.

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The South Korean company has rushed to remedy that with its own smart-phone platform, Bada, and by producing mobile phones that use Google's low-cost Android operating system.

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NT, because it minimises the cost and complication of the operating system.

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If the Z10 and Q10 sales can keep the company afloat, if they can recoup the cost of the BlackBerry 10 operating system, if they can generate enough excess income to design new smartphones for release throughout 2013 and beyond, then they have a success.

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The Android approach of coding an operating system and then providing it at a low cost so that hardware manufacturers would drive users towards Google services might have looked attractive on paper, but it would not reach a billion users without a huge amount of time and effort on the part of Facebook.

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In 2008, Google launched the open-source Android operating system, licensing mobile software to any and all device makers (at no cost), allowing others to tweak their code and innovate without permission.

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Add revenue from membership fees and advertising, then subtract the cost of setting up charging stations and operating expenses, and such a system could break even in the first year.

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Each of these companies has a created an operating system that people invest their time and money in, systems that value the sunk cost in both time and money and penalize the long slog of moving to another digital planet.

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