Android likely falls into this camp as well, as mobile phone manufacturers and cellular carriers would not support a mobile operating system with very narrow appeal.

FORBES: Is Google Too Rushed to Pioneer?

In 1993, NTT DoCoMo, Japan's principal mobile-phone carrier, opted for a technical standard called Personal Digital Cellular (PDC), which was incompatible with the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), the standard adopted by most of the rest of the world.

CNN: ASIANOW - TIME Asia | Phone Wars: Episode 3G

At the time cellular calls flitted from tower to tower under an electronic protocol later known as GSM (global system for mobile), a group effort whose three progenitors--Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola--had pooled their patents and didn't charge one another any royalties.

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