Amazon break even or even make a loss on their hardware.
Nice example, so lets take that forward.
So, Amazon sell their hardware at a loss, but force a UI, that is Amazon only, and you then buy amazon stuff, making money.
The OEMs won't be able to do this, as they have no revenue stream once the handset is sold. So, the Surface phone has to be our Amazon equivolent.
Microsoft sell the Surface phone at a loss. Its significantly cheaper than all the OEMs, so it sells like hotcakes, but in the process Microsoft losses the OEMs (as they can't compete). So, you are left with one, maybe 2 bargain basement WP8 handsets.
Now Microsoft have killed off the OEMs what do they do? Where do the interesting handsets come from? Where is the innovation? What do we get? 1/2 new generic cheap handsets every 6 months.
Is that really what you want from WP8? Its certainly not the future i want.