And how many manufacturers are building devices that run on Maemo? Maemo is awesome, but Nokia is the only manufacturer willing to gamble with it (and I respect them a great deal for that), and even then they're only gambling with one device at a time.

Tighter control (than Maemo, not than anything else) is precisely why Android is being leveraged in dozens of devices by half a dozen manufacturers and several carriers. Carriers especially have enjoyed extremely tight control over the devices that run on their networks.

The whole point of Android is to break down that system, but it can't happen overnight. So Android retains some amount of lockdown control (for now), but still, it's already making progress: when Verizon announced that VOIP software would be allowed to run on the Droid, AT&T announced the very next day that it would allow VOIP apps to run over 3g on the iPhone. One step closer to freer devices for everyone, not just Android users.

Coincidence? Google is using Android (in a Trojan horse style) to change the relationship between carriers, developers, and users - to take power away from the carriers, and to give that power back to developers and users. And they're doing it at a huge cost to themselves with just a weak, indirect, and highly-latent incentive: to get more mobile phones onto the internet.

Note: I have no connection with the Android team, so I don't speak for them or for Google, but these are the conclusions I've drawn from their public talks and from common sense.