True, I was being simple with the story of how PCs opened up. The truth of the matter is as you pointed out. It dealt with court cases, and Microsoft's open agreement with IBM that let them put their OS in nearly anything.

But anyway that's what I think is going happen with the smartphone market eventually. That a more open (not necessarily open as in code like Linux) but open as in plentiful is going outnumber companes who insist on having only one model or be tied to one manufacturer/carrier. Who that competitor is, I don't know. Though right now out of the existing operating systems I'm thinking it'll be Android (But even then Android is still premature at the moment and Google seems to be slow).