While the recent billion dollar verdict against Samsung for violating Apple’s iPhone patents should clearly benefit Apple in its quest for smart phone supremacy, Slate.com’s Matthew Yglesias argues that it could also hurt the telecommunications companies that sell mobile phone plans and, ironically, help Apple’s longtime rival, Microsoft.
According to Yglesias, the iPhone’s popularity gave Apple enormous leverage in negotiations with the telecom companies, but the rise of Samsung (and other companies’) phones using the Android operating system created a viable alternative to help counterbalance it. In light of the verdict, the scales may once again tip heavily in Apple’s favor.
At the same time, if the market turns away from Samsung and the Android system, the decision could help Microsoft and its Windows Phone operating system emerge from the shadows to become a major iPhone alternative.
