HTC, Motorola, Sony Ericsson all have their own UI overlays for Android, the aim being it offers a user "experience", alters the way the phone works and aims to add to the overall Android experience. It's their attempt to try and differentiate between each other. Whilst I see the point here, I don't quite agree with this strategy.
I've pointed out before short term it's a decent strategy, when Android itself was still an ugly duckling. But, times have changed, Android is no longer the ugly duckling it started off as. It's more polished, streamlined and capable since release and personally think all these UI overlays and experiences actually hinder the overall experience of Android. Of course they serve a purpose and do have some great additional stuff the user gets for purchasing their own handsets, as each experience is locked to the handsets purchased (without hacking).
But why are they restricting their "experience" to only their handsets? Why not use the available space to attract customers from their competitors using the Android Marketplace?
Lets take for example HTC and their Sense UI on their Android handsets. I myself own a Desire and am quite satisfied with it. I'm rooted and running a custom ROM (GingerVillain). I do this because I want the latest Android release ASAP, also for the fact there are some optimisations included in the custom Rom which make my life easier and using Android much more pleasant. But, I do miss some cool features form Sense; mainly the Camera and Music player. Now I'm not going to re-flash back to the stock Sense Rom to gain these things, rather I'll look for alternatives. This is where I think companies like HTC are missing an opportunity. Why not offer the Camera and Music player, or even the Framework in the Android Market?
There's an easy and simple revenue model there; have a free and paid versions of Sense elements found on their handsets, make them compatible with other manufacturers or with stock Android and offer them in the Market. Not only do you get income from those who may not have purchased your handsets, but you're offering your current customers the choice of picking and choosing which elements they may want or not on their handsets. This benefits you in another way and gives you some free market research data:
You can easily see which elements of your custom UI are popular and can include them in your next handset versions and remove the bloat-ware no one is using or installing.
Now I'm not familiar with the technical obstacles which may be there, but from what I have seen, the Android community can pretty much bake a custom Rom to their liking with features added and patched as they please.
So what's stopping these multi million pound companies with bigger resources? If you want to differentiate between yourself and your competitors in an even playground, in my opinion change the landscape to your liking. Use it to your advantage. When it comes to Android, the AOSP (Android Open Source Project) is the biggest gateway for any of these manufacturers to bend and change as they please. It's just staggering how any of them aren't doing any of this. Instead they're opting to add in gimmicky features like Facebook and Twitter integration. To me it seems like once again, we're back to the same situation we were in the days before the iPhone - a starvation of innovation. Linear thinking and strategies.
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