Interesting and true take. Without that fragmentation, Android would never have the market share it currently has, however that fragmentation makes it very difficult for developers and smartphone manufacturers to thrive in the ecosystem.
This is exactly what happened in the Windows vs MacOS past. At the beginning of the "war" the Windows environment had a plethora of people making money. Developers were making a fortune in software and manufacturers were making very good money in making computers. Of course Microsoft was making the most money out of all of them.
However, over time there becomes a race to the bottom. In the Windows example the developers never felt the hurt as much as the manufacturers because Windows owned the enterprise. The manufacturers however hardly make any profit.
The interesting thing to watch in the Android vs iOS "war" will be the long term game. The smartphone wars are very young and already all the manufacturers have gone straight to the bottom. Since this "war" doesn't have high-end enterprise dominance, developers are not making more money on the marketshare winner, they are making more money on the profitshare winner.
So even though the marketshare won the day in the previous "war", we are not seeing the same behavior in this war, so over time I believe the fragmentation will hurt Android. That's why Google is going with the Android L philosophy moving forward, which I think is a necessity for long-term survival.
