Well, there's at least one difference: Android is open source, so anyone (even microsoft if they wanted to) could take android and fork it (and make everything

Well, there's at least one difference: Android is open source, so anyone (even microsoft if they wanted to) could take android and fork it (and make everything but the kernel changes proprietary). The problem with predatory pricing isn't that they're giving it away, it's that once they've established monopoly, they can change more for it, or restrict access, etc. With android that's just not possible. Also, technically Android is the property of the Open Handset Alliance, it's just that google does most of the development, especially of big features.