Passion. Ability. Reality. Joy.

As I posted earlier, it’s impressive how Microsoft has been able to get in on the Android gravy train, especially in light of how much of a disappointment their own mobile efforts have proven to be in the marketplace (by the way, I do actually like the Windows Phone 7 interface).

Well, by losing the Nortel patent auction, Google once again finds itself in a very precarious position.  Even though Microsoft had patent licensing agreements in place with Nortel to start with, one could argue that if Google had acquired the patent portfolio, it might have made life a little easier on them, despite existing licensing agreements likely remaining in place.  But since all those 6,000+ patents (many of which are for mobile technologies that will almost certainly prove to be problematic for Brin and Co.) are now out of Google’s reach, it may have no choice but to concede that their free OS isn’t really free after all.

Don’t get me wrong.  I have much respect for Google and for the innovation they bring to the marketplace.  I was at Yahoo! when I saw the mighty Google engine take away the vaunted search business from us.  And being at Nuance now, I know how much Android’s “free” speech APIs have kept us on our toes.  Google has a way, because of their ad engine, to innovate and push things out in rapid fashion and arguably with high feature content, that others frankly struggle with.  It’s almost like because it’s free, they get permission to experiment.  Collect data.  Build better models.  But there is always a day of reckoning, either for end users (consider the termination of GOOG-411 and the Google Translate API) or for OEMs, and for the latter, they will likely have to start paying a toll to Microsoft.  And if Microsoft can somehow figure out how to get their app ecosystem working, they could always push Android out of the market and push Windows.  But without apps, the phones will perish.

So they better move quick.