In small device mobile computing OSes, there is Android and everybody else.

It is quickly becoming a rout. Android smartphone shipments accounted for 84% of worldwide handsets shipped. 268 million Android phones shipped in Q3 2014? Yep. Apple's iOS lost market share to Android, but then so did everyone that is not Android. Some of the more comical statements in the article are here:

Neil Mawston, Executive Director at Strategy Analytics, added, "Android's leadership of the global smartphone market looks unbeatable at the moment. Its low-cost services and user-friendly software remain attractive to hardware makers, operators and consumers worldwide.

However, challenges are emerging for Google. The Android platform is getting overcrowded with hundreds of hardware brands, Android smartphone prices are falling worldwide, and few Android device vendors make profits."

So, Google--spearheaded by Android--really is taking over the known universe, but challenges remain for Google? That is an error, sir. It is the handset makers that are experiencing challenges. Google's biggest liability is not continuing to erode the sales of other platforms and somehow being faced with a monopoly. Although, one has to be selling something in order to become a monopoly. This is where it gets scary. Since Android is given away for free, how do you curtail what is quickly looking like a black hole for choice? Perhaps Google's brilliant head of Android, Sundar Pichai, may just be offering up something that some government somewhere can use as a lever. By offering Android with the typical small suite of Google services, that may be a wedge. Other than that, it looks like game over in small mobile computing devices. I have used two devices running 5.0 developer v2+(praise be to XDA), and it is pretty awesome..as OSes go, at any rate. Common folk are going to absolutely love it. ART and Material Design are going to allow even weak devices--like my L34C phone--to fly with Lollipop.

Oh, and Android is alos gobbling up worldwide market share in tablet sales as well.I am all for choice and world dominance makes me queasy, but this story continues to get rosier for Google/Android, and worse for everyone else. Even the once maligned Chromebook sales are booming, but coming from a very different level of penetration than either phones or tablets. I think that Google gets a weird last mover advantage here. Netbooks are dead, and until Windows notebooks are as cheap as Chromebooks, Google has lots of room to scale here.

As of now, Gartner Research predicts that only 5.2 million Chromebooks will be sold this year, but by 2017 they predict that 14.4 million Chromebooks will be sold in that year. Google has the wind to its back. Free Windows had better get here quickly, or this market too, may well go to those clever Mountain View folks; and their simple, yet efficient devices. I dunno what parents are thinking getting their kids Macs. That's just not using the old melon very well. At any rate, Chromebooks may be here to stay, and since their development is now under Pichai's guiding hand, no one is safe.

It is very odd that Google is not focused laser like on the company's quarter-to-quarter performance. Google is commendably a big picture company. As of this moment I feel pretty strongly that Sundar Pichai is THE most powerful person in the world of computer technologies. Ac strong statement, but he and his teams are doing a couple of very amazing things while still helping Google to keep the ship afloat via the advertising cash cow.

Google is de-emphasizing adwords in favor of reaching every person on this planet with Google services, and the almost unfathomable amount of valuable personal data that they will have at their disposal. Google has so many divisions already that the company is morphing into some kind of technological GE. Larry Page is no dummy. By not managing the company on a quarter-to-quarter basis, Wall Street might not back his play all of the time, but over the long haul, Google seems a good bet. A better bet than any other technology company that I can name. Those crazy kids are ambitious, and damned successful, too.

This company has yet to reach adolescence. It was only founded in 1998! Lots of room to grow..an almost limitless amount of room. No company in history has had this kind of cash reserve(62.6 billion USD) at such a young age. The company could have billions more as well, but they keep reaching into new areas and fund everything from their enormous cash reserves.

Google is big brother. Hopefully, this big brother will be beneficent.