Here's the scorecard for the looming Mobile Battles

The "front four" include Microsoft, Google, Apple and Blackberry; all have modern mobile operating systems. The second tier includes dozens of hardware companies hoping to jump on the right OS bandwagon - or bandwagons. Samsung is often considered the top Android phone and tablet maker in terms of volume, profit and quality but they also use Microsoft's operating system for some phones. Few mobile device makers make substantial profits so the herd could start thinning pretty quickly.

You can tell the road ahead is shaky. HP just announced they will make an Android tablet. Microsoft is helping to bail out Dell even as they introduce their own competing Surface tablets. Amazon blocks Kindle users from the Android Play store and Samsung introduces a Siri imitator that bypasses Google search. Gonna get nasty!