Used by a significant portion of computer users, ie Windows Phone is not a successful platform, Android is, and if Microsoft can't make a successful phone platform, what chance does this go fund me campaign have.
'Many large tech companies' is pretty insignificant when you look at the number of people who use desktop computers, and then even more insignificant when you look at the number of people who use phones, and is a very poor metric as it doesn't really consider people actually choosing to purchase the system when others are on offer.
There is just no value in their proposition to consumers... Have an expensive old phone, made by a company that can in no way support your purchase should the hardware fail...
And I don't believe for a second that it will be more secure than iOS or even Android. Small team, custom operating system, the user can install their own OS, sounds like a recipe for disaster.
I don't think your definition of success matches theirs. People have different values, some value openness above market share.
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Speaking of openness, and since you mentioned ios: apple recently unpublished a company's entire catalog of apps without any explanations. The word on the street is malware (well technically fraudulent adware) but do you think you will ever get apple to admit that?
I think it will match their version of success when they run out of money and are no longer able to support their users.
I don't know about the case you mention. I do not think that Apple manage their developer community well, but most issues like the one you highlight are generally edge cases - users doing something that isn't clearly defined by Apple rules. What was the company and what did its apps specifically do? If it was fraudulent adware do you not agree that they should be removed?
Btw, Linux on desktop is used by many large tech companies...