+ Developer intimacy. The Android SDK is very straightforward to learn and fits within an existing Java workflow.
Which is nice if you have an existing java workflow, which you might if you're writing in-house enterprise software, but less likely if you're writing software for the open market, in which case it's likely to be a liability, and an obstacle to re-using existing code.
Ultimately, though, commercial developers choose a platform based on market share and opportunity.
+ Open standards. The SDK, and the Android Market, are based off of a simple, transparent system. The walled garden with the iPhone has generated lots of games and content-reaggregators
The iphone has lots of games and content re-aggregators because those are applications that are in demand for a mobile platform. If the argument is that the iphone has too little commercial software suited to the needs of the enterprise market, then the question is "what software does android have?", and "if it isn't there yet, either, why is that software more likely to be written for Android?"
I'm not sure I can think of how to apply the term "open standards" in such a way that there's a win for Android as opposed to iphone, or how Apple is a "walled garden" with respect to standards. Apple certainly constrains applications to a sandbox, and those constraints particularly limit the ability to do concurrency, run servers, etc. This does have some useability rewards, though, by reducing the potential for variation in performance seen by the user, elimination of the need to do the "maintenance" that WM requires when apps accumulate and the device starts to run out of memory.
But note that this "advantage" simply assumes a continuation of what is no more than a policy decision by Apple, one they could change in a heart-beat if they felt it was costing them business, which makes it difficult to assume as some kind of sustainable advantage.
+ Device portability. Android is an open architecture that can currently run on a whole host of ARM based processors, and (if the rumors are true), will begin running on the TI OMAP's that run the iPhone. Translation: hardware vendors are very excited about this OS.
You certainly gain the ability to put the software on devices with lesser capabilities, and thus lower price points, than the iphone. This is, in no way, an inherent advantage of the software, so much as a difference in marketing strategy. Apple could easily produce a crappy down-scaled iphone based on cheaper hardware, and run their software on it, though the experience would obviously be inferior.
But for more specialized applications, it may be a win to scale back the hardware and the price.
Ultimately, though, when people are paying $1000/year for service, saving $100 for the price of the hardware isn't that big a win.
But for makers of devices that compete with the iphone, obviously iphone/os isn't a choice for them, so they should certainly be happy to have an option that gives them something that they can use to get in the game.
+ Carriers. iPhone is an AT&T only story right now.
Again though, while we can theorize that this is a competitive advantage today, this is another business/policy decision that Apple could change easily, calling into question whether it's really a sustainable advantage.
-harry
Senility kicking in I guess. Or perhaps retrograde organic memory as I can clearly recall when I had 5 MB hard drive that was half the size of a desk.
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