Has there even been a bigger, costlier failure in high tech than Android?

I ask you: Has there even been a bigger, costlier failure in high tech than Android?

Yes, I realize that merely by asking the question Android fanboys -- and others -- will flame me.

Android is only 3 years old! It dominates *global* smartphone markets. It has already surpassed Symbian to become the #1 smartphone platform in the world -- and in the US.

Very soon, there will be more apps that for iPhone.

Numerous vendors all around the world offer an array of Android devices at all price points for all markets.

Android is one of the most successful high-tech products ever!

Maybe. But I'm not so sure. As a devout user of iPhone -- not iPhone 4S -- it's easy for me to say that iPhone is "superior" or to note that iPhone makes the most money or that it is the most popular smartphone in the world and that with only 3 models iPhone nearly matched market leader Samsung in total smartphone sales for 2011, or that iPhone 4S remains a global phenomenon, surpassing Samsung's Q4 2011 sales and helping to put iPhone within striking distance of Android's US market share.

I won't say these things because I'm not interested in a temporary sales slide but in something more fundamental: Android is a cost center. This is, I believe, the primary reason Google -- which eagerly touts any positive sounding numbers related to Android -- continues to refuse to break out any cost/revenue numbers associated with Android.

By my estimate, Google alone will have spent $20 billion on Android by the time its acquisition of Motorola is complete early this year. 

$20 billion

Yet most of the money Google receives from "mobile" comes via mobile search and most of those searches come via iPhone.

Google has spent unaccounted millions, possibly more, in building a tightly integrated Android operating system with its own Gmail and Google Voice and Google search and Google maps and turn-by-turn navigation and, despite the "open" moniker, demands every single "Android" vendor use each of these ("for the users"). 

But they are generating zero dollars in revenues. Or damn close to zero.

Consider some of the biggest, most capable high tech companies in the world:

LG. Sony. HTC. Motorola. Look at their earnings statements and listen to their guidance.

Are any generating *revenues* off Android? Only Samsung, which has wholesale copied the design and marketing/distribution of iPhone is making real money.

Perhaps there are simply too many handset makers with too many models, driving the price down and/or creating confusion in the marketplace?

For all the billions of apps downloaded, the revenues that have flowed to the Android developer community have been miserly compared to iPhone's developer community.

It's not just that Google is losing billions on Android, the entire ecosystem remains in the negative!

Why?

Is it because the iPhone is so superior and Apple so well managed that they are able to capture nearly all the profits the entire global smartphone market has to give?

Is it because Google has spent the better part of a decade training users to demand free content, information and access?

Does a tightly integrated media platform, such as only Apple and Amazon have built, really so fully determine the fortunes of the larger ecosystem?

Does the golden Google business model simply not translate to mobile?

Is it time? Google has rapidly iterated Android and done its best to build applications that work best and only for Android and built out its developer community and marketplace and funneled money to handset makers to build Android. Are we approaching, finally, that point where everything aligns and the platform starts raining down money upon all its participants?

If so, I think that Google buying Samsung/HTC/LG/Sony competitor, Motorola, might throw a wrench in those plans. And the outstanding lawsuits against Android, from Microsoft, Apple, Skyhook, Oracle and others, might further complicate any dreams of net gains.

Not to mention that Windows Phone may finally be ready to compete against Android, further siphoning off any potential revenues.

I would like to hear your thoughts. As I write this, Android has been a massive money pit. Why? And how long will investors tolerate this?