[Lee Yuan Sheng]

On carriers:

So far I get the feeling most of you want to have your cake and eat it too.

Thing is, does anyone honestly think a Tilt is going to outsell the iPhone? Also, doesn't the iPhone come with an expensive 3G plan?

There is no such thing as a free lunch. The subsidies are only possible because of complex array of business models, from installing crap to entice you to use certain (highly marked-up) services, advertising/branding, expensive plans, or in the iPhone's case, the knowledge that it will sell and generate new customers (on lucrative data plans no less).

There's a reason why Apple can get to dictate this. They know they have a product they can sell. The carriers know this too.

On MS:

I think one problem MS has is that there's a OEM in the middle of it all too. If they're used to dealing with the carriers in one way, MS has less choice in this matter. Probably a reason why they bought Danger. Having both the hardware and software could make the difference on the negotiation table.