"When you are the underdog in the smartphone world, you look for every advantage possible to get market share. That was the case when Google was looking to establish Android as an alternative to Symbian OS and Windows Mobile. It’s free, here’s the code, knock yourself out, was the implication from Mountain View. Now that market share is clearly with Google (IDC estimates it at 85% for Q2 2014) the question is no longer how to get the OS established as the mass market mobile platform of choice, but about maximizing the revenue generating possibilities for Google. So how does Google deal with the legacy of the first ‘free as in speech’ strategy, namely the Android Open Source Project? Its answer is Android One, and it hopes that the new for 2014 off-the-shelf package will stem the flow of handset manufacturers in China and India rolling their own flavors of Android from the Android Open Source Project (AOSP)."

-- source: http://onforb.es/1nOiR0k

Cheers, Peter