Regarding the "evil company" issue, companies in general aren't evil. Amoral, sure, but not evil. They're living entities that exist to be increasingly profitable and increase their scope... to be increasingly profitable.
The Playbook is about to get a whole lot of apps come the fall, when Blackberry is going to release the Android-app marketplace onto the Playbook, giving BB users access to all the Android apps.
And while I am confident in W8 software to be far better than QNX, I just hope that Microsoft makes their own tablet, instead of relying on other RTM's to fulfill their expectations. MS makes great hardware, all of the Zunes were awesome, I don't know why MS is refusing to make a nice solid build off of their own software.
I'll admit that I haven't kept up on Blackberry development, so my views on it are definitely ignorant. But the idea that RIM is officially releasing a marketplace to use a competing platform's apps (even if they are recompiled) basically highlights their inability to attract developers to QNX. What's going to separate this from being just another Android device in the eyes of the consumer? The wealth of native Playbook apps?
Windows 8 interests me because it's an extension of Metro UI and they even managed to add a bit of windowing in which'll be very useful for me. And you know it'll have developer support. I can't wait to see what Adobe brings to the table, or even better the next startup that's aiming for the same market as Adobe. I love the idea that, if I need it, the trusty ol' explorer is underneath. Hopefully I don't have to switch sessions or whatever to access it. I love that I can run some of the same apps I run on my desktop on Windows 8, so there's less need to hunt for new apps to do what you already know how to do.
And Microsoft doesn't make hardware largely because they don't want to do what Google's very likely going to do -- compete with their partners. Producing both the software and hardware would allow Google to produce their ideal vision of what an Android phone should be, to the dismay of their partners, no,
licensees. Google hasn't formally announced that they'll be producing phones via Motorola Mobility, but if they don't I'd be shocked.