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They may be able to accelerate the process of elimination of the weaklings, but don't you think that the operating systems need to fight it out in the market-space and get eliminated as part of the normal process of evolution of the mobile technology. I do not want the carriers to make the decision, I want the market to make the decision. What are your thoughts?
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The problem is that we're not the direct customers of the OS developers. The OS developers sell their wares to the handset manufacturers who then sell their devices to the operators. The average consumer actually has very little say it which operating system lives or dies.
For example, Palm OS is dead in Europe. Hardly any carriers released, let alone promoted, the Treo range. The consumer never got to decide whether they liked Palm OS because Palm OS phones were never offered to them.
Carriers often look to Japan, and especially NTT DoCoMo, as the ideal role model. Japanese carriers have a huge influence over the handset manufacturers and can dictate the features on new models. NTT DoCoMo standardized on just Linux and Symbian a long time ago and their strategy appears to be working. I'm sure that the Western carriers would like to do the same.