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Apple, Android and a truckload of watermelons

By
Philip Elmer-DeWitt
Philip Elmer-DeWitt
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By
Philip Elmer-DeWitt
Philip Elmer-DeWitt
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May 23, 2013, 3:04 PM ET
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FORTUNE — “Have you heard this one?” asks John Kirk in Android’s Market Share is Literally a Joke, a Tech.pinions piece posted Thursday.

It starts like this:

Two farmers bought a truckload of watermelons, paying five dollars apiece for them. Then they drove to the market and sold all their watermelons for four dollars each. After counting their money at the end of the day, they realized that they’d ended up with less money than they’d started with.

“See!” said the one farmer to the other. “I told you we shoulda got a bigger truck.”

It’s a variation on the old “making it up in volume” saw, and Kirk has a truckload of them. His punchline, in case you haven’t guessed, is that Google’s (GOOG) Android is winning the race with Apple (AAPL) iPhone because it’s got a bigger truck.

It’s a well-reasoned piece, and if some the arguments sound familiar it may be because the author is a regular Apple 2.0 reader and one of our favorite commentators, posting here under the handle “Falkirk.”

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By Philip Elmer-DeWitt
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