"This means that the smartphone OS market is effectively closed."
So how did Apple enter it? Or Google? When 75% of the market is an exception to your rule it's time to give the rule a second look.
"too expensive for small players"
This is dreamland. Patents aside, making a competitive mobile phone is a huge capital intensive endeavor. Patents don't scare people off half as much as the world of contract manufacturing does. There's no 17 year old wunderkind in Topeka being stopped from billionaire status here.
Apple and Google are excellent examples of how the market is closed. They can lose billions of dollars and still turn a profit. They can enter any market they want, even completely closed ones.
If it's dreamland, why are there small desktop linux competitors? You confuse engineering effort with business effort. You can't launch a smartphone OS business, but you can launch a desktop OS business. The only reasons that this is the case are patents.
How are they different from the Android forks showing up around the world?
How do they make money? How much would they make if Google gave away the same services for free?
If milk (read: Smartphone OS) was free it's seems pretty clear that you and I would not want to enter the milk selling business.
Caveat: unless we were able to deliver a superior quality milk that people would pay for and had some assurance (read: patents) that our innovation(s) would not be immediately copied and given away by the free milkers (read: Google/KIRF pirates).
So how did Apple enter it? Or Google? When 75% of the market is an exception to your rule it's time to give the rule a second look.
"too expensive for small players"
This is dreamland. Patents aside, making a competitive mobile phone is a huge capital intensive endeavor. Patents don't scare people off half as much as the world of contract manufacturing does. There's no 17 year old wunderkind in Topeka being stopped from billionaire status here.