It’s clear that Samsung’s executives are having a bad time these days. First, they released the Galaxy Note 7 phablet only to receive reports of dozens of incidents of batteries overheating and sometimes bursting into flame. That’s bad enough, and, to its credit, Samsung quickly recalled the product and presumably worked on a fixed version.

But it only went from bad to worse from there. So Samsung released the new version last month, said to be free of the battery defect, and many customers dutifully exchanged their handsets. Unfortunately, the scandal didn’t end there. Within days arose reports that the fixed smartphones weren’t fixed after all. Some of them, too, burst into flame.

At first Samsung announced that production of the Galaxy Note 7 would be halted temporarily. U.S. carriers announced they’d no longer distribute this model. It didn’t take long for Samsung to get the message. Production has been stopped, and Samsung will “eat” the losses, which may amount to as much as $19 billion.

Even worse, according to a report in The New York Times, Samsung has yet to figure out exactly what went wrong. They were never able to duplicate the problem during their test process. I’m not sure what that means, other than the possibility that Samsung is going to have to revise its R&D methods to avoid future problems.

Now just imagine if this sort of thing happened to Apple. What if an iPhone had an unusual tendency to overheat and/or burst into flame? You can be sure that the U.S. Congress would be putting Tim Cook on the carpet, and it would fill headlines for days. The hard-won reputation for the iPhone would vanish overnight, and the stock price would tank.

How long would it take for Apple to recover from such a scandal?

Samsung? Well, the story has gotten more play in recent days, and that’s a good thing. Anyone who still has a Galaxy Note 7 should shut it down and return it post haste. Dealers will no doubt exchange it for something else, or give you your money back. Even though the unit you have may work properly now, it is still a ticking time bomb in the most literal sense.

Now in addition to the financial fallout, Samsung is going to have to work doubly hard to convince customers that its new mobile handsets do not share the same battery problems. I would expect that they are going to test the products as carefully as possible to make sure they survive the most stringent abuse.

But the recovery won’t be fast or easy. It may take years for Samsung to regain its reputation as a manufacturer of reliable mobile hardware. In the meantime, there’s an open opportunity for other manufacturers to make sales at Samsung’s expense. You’d expect lesser players in the Android market would attempt to benefit, such as HTC, LG and Lenovo’s Motorola division.

But what about Google and the newly-announced Pixel, Phone by Google lineup? Will customers suddenly flock to Google as an alternative? They might have, except that the new product is only going to be available from just one carrier, Verizon Wireless, or directly from Google. That promises limited distribution, even if Google spends a reasonable amount of money for advertising. Indeed, why invest in marketing if most people can’t buy one conveniently?

If Pixel, Phone by Google, takes off, I suppose there’s  long-term potential. But it may take a year or two for that potential to begin to be realized. Google can’t benefit from the current situation, because Samsung’s reputation is tarnished now, and the time to take advantage of that state of affairs is now. With new hardware, great reviews, and no more burnt hardware, Samsung may regain its reputation someday. Not now, but perhaps when the Galaxy S8 arrives next year? Maybe not even then.

So how does that impact Apple?

Well, Apple’s stock price has risen in recent days, no doubt partly in the belief that some people will just choose iPhone as a replacement for those defective Samsungs. Certainly people who might have considered jumping platforms might choose this as the perfect time to act on that plan. The iPhone 7 family is hot stuff, but it’s still backordered, particularly the iPhone 7 Plus. Indeed, when I checked Apple’s online storefront, and choose what I believe to be an iPhone 7 Plus in a less-popular color, I was still quoted 3-4 weeks delivery.

So if people want something now, the iPhone 7 might not be the ideal choice, unless you’re willing to wait a while, or luck into something you like at your local dealer. On the long haul, however, it may well be that Apple will still benefit, particularly from customers who don’t need an immediate replacement. Or perhaps they’ll consider an iPhone 6s, which is readily available.

In the meantime, I do not expect to see Apple say much, or anything, about Samsung’s predicament. Let the story play out, and if customers are coming, let them come. I suppose it’s possible something might be said at a future media event, or during Apple’s conference call with financial analysts later this month if someone asks. Even then, Apple’s executives might be generous about it, and simply state they hope that Samsung will solve its problems and get back to business.

While behind the scenes, the corks are probably popping at Apple headquarters.

In Microsoft’s vision of an ideal world, Windows would have fully supplanted the original Mac OS 20 years ago. For a while in the mid-1990s, it appeared that Apple might allow that to happen by default. But when Apple’s executives made a final, desperate move — to acquire Steve Jobs’ NeXT in late 1996 — the future of the company was cemented.

Only it wasn’t obvious then.

But when you look at how things turned out, you can see how Apple saw our mobile future and Microsoft continued to live in the 1980s. Today’s Microsoft is doing well enough, with promising sales of apps and cloud services. Windows got them there, but remains mostly confined to traditional PC desktops. The mobile handset version is barely on life support, and Microsoft is selling some Surface tablets, but only a fraction of the number of iPads shipped by Apple.

Even though hundreds of millions of users are running the latest and greatest OS from Microsoft, Windows 10, it’s ongoing success is somewhat of a question mark. For a year — and only a year — it was a free download. During that time, Microsoft made some peculiar moves to force upgrades, such as downloading the installer in the background without your approval, and sometimes running the installer without prior consent. A curious change in Windows dialog conventions even allowed you to dismiss a prompt about Windows 10, and rather than simply Exit the dialog, it would start the installer.

Today, consumer upgrades for Windows 10 start at $119. Predictably, the upgrade pace has stalled and, according to some estimates, the number of users may have actually declined slightly. Is this a statistical blip, or just a reflection of the migration pace leveling off?

According to Microsoft, Windows 10 will remain Windows 10 for a while, as feature updates will roll out on a fairly regular basis. This will, of course, create confusion, because you won’t know what version you have without checking an otherwise meaningless build number.

Still, Microsoft is installed on over 90% of the PC desktops around the world. There’s an existing application ecosystem with at least 669,000 selections at last count. While overall PC sales are less than they used to be, that’s not something to dismiss. But the share of revenue generated by Windows for Microsoft is reportedly just 10% of the total.

Now into this environment, one online blogger is suggesting that it’s time for Microsoft to ditch Windows.

Say what?

The blogger takes Google’s Android as an example of a Linux-based OS that has come to dominate the mobile space with an estimated market share of over 87%. That’s encroaching on the territory occupied by Windows in the PC market. But Apple’s iOS is still prospering, so it’s hard to see where it’ll get much better.

Regardless, the theory goes that Microsoft ought to consider phasing out Windows since it is expensive to keep it going and running acceptably on thousands and thousands of different computer systems, and the revenue just isn’t worth the bother at a time when the computing world has embraced mobile.

So how is it going to be replaced? Well, the blogger cites Google’s Andromeda as possible example. It’s a merger of Android and Chrome OS. While Chrome OS is designed to run on an Intel-based PC, it’s really just a cloud-based system that runs most apps within browser windows. It may work well enough for basic computing tasks on cheap gear where an online connection is almost always available, but it cannot possibly replace a full-bore Windows PC with major productivity apps that include Office 365 and Adobe Creative Cloud.

As the blogger admits, Linux on the desktop was pitiful failure. A key reason is that open source developers mostly built operating system interfaces that followed, rather poorly, the Windows model. Without agreement on one interface, and one developer ecosystem, it was a fragmented mess. Android works fine on a Linux kernel. Linux is also widely used for web servers and other specialty purposes, but not so much otherwise.

As much as Microsoft appears to be supporting Linux versions of its cloud-based developer tools, that’s doesn’t mean that Windows can be thrown away and developers, with huge app investments, can suddenly be cast aside.

Apple found a successful way to move developers from one computing platform and operating system to another. Consider the migrations from Motorola 680×0 chips to PowerPC in the 1990s, and to Intel beginning in 2005. Consider how traditional Mac OS developers were guided to create macOS apps. But Apple’s developer network and user base was far smaller than Microsoft and it still took years with some missteps in order to complete the migration.

When Apple delivered iOS, it used developer frameworks from OS X as the building blocks. Developers could be apps using the same Xcode for Mac developer tools used to build apps for Macs.

For Microsoft to give up on Windows without a replacement and a well-defined and fairly smooth migration path would be suicidal. If developers had to start from scratch, would they embrace some unknown and untested Linux framework, or would they just go all Mac?

Yes, perhaps Microsoft should consider a future without Windows; it’s no doubt already being done. But this is something that will take years to accomplish, and it’s fair to say Microsoft isn’t going to cede that space to one of its main rivals, Google. I suppose it’s possible that Microsoft could just spin off Windows into a separate company and let them go their own way. But Windows users shouldn’t fear that the computing platform on which they depend — with all its well-known flaws — is going to be replaced any time soon.

Again, if that were to happen, the biggest beneficiary might just be Apple.

It is very common to append the label “gate” on any alleged scandal, all originating from the infamous Watergate break-in at Democratic headquarters that ended up with Richard Nixon resigning as President of the U.S. At the time, the Watergate contained offices, hotel rooms and condos. I should know, as my uncle, agricultural consultant Martin Sorkin, was living there when my first wife and I spent the night at his home in June, 1972.

A week later, well, you probably know the rest.

Today, the Watergate appears to be mostly a luxury hotel with nightly rates beyond what regular people can usually afford. But the reputation remains, and almost every time something that appears akin to a scandal occurs, the name must contain the word “gate.” But if you consider the way it was originally used, Watergate would actually become “Watergate Gate.” But cultural memes never die, despite the facts.

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Clearly the name “Pixel, Phone by Google” isn’t very memorable. Instead, it’s an example of a company without a whole lot of experience in the consumer market trying to build a gadget that seems exclusive. True, Google also has Chromecast video streamers, which have been quite successful perhaps mostly due to its $35 purchase price. But that’s a notable exception.

In the past, Google partnered with different Android handset makers to market a line of devices sporting the pure, unadulterated Android experience known as Nexus. It wasn’t that features or performance was necessarily any better than the competition, but it served as a demonstration of Android technology, and for those who didn’t appreciate the junkware embedded on their gear by handset makers and wireless carriers, this was the way to go.

But, if anything, it illustrated the fundamental problem with Android, which is the inability to push updates, even critical security fixes, to hundreds of millions of customers. Indeed, people buy new Android gear only to find that the OS is a year or two old. For the first year, market share of a new Android OS is often in the single digits. Compare that to Apple, which totally controls the update process and usually earns an over 90% share of installed devices before the next iOS arrives.

Google has tried its hand at building mobile gear in the past, as the result of its failed purchase of Motorola Mobility. While the division was once a top-tier handset maker, it had fallen at hard times when Google acquired it in 2011 for the “discount” price of  $12.5 billion. But buying a failing company doesn’t magically make it successful, and all those patents held by Motorola weren’t helpful. So Google had a fire sale and sold off the division in 2014 to Lenovo for $2.91.

Motorola handsets are still being made, but market share is still no great shakes.

That unfortunate experience clearly didn’t sour Google on trying it once again, on a reduced scale. So they hired former Motorola hardware executives and engineers and created the Pixel. While the brand name is used on other Google products, it doesn’t really have a history. So far as Android handsets are concerned, it’s all brand new.

But otherwise, it’s hard to consider it to be more than just another generic high-end Android handset with little that’s distinctive. Other than the promise of an uncontaminated Android interface, the promise of superior camera software, and unlimited online photo storage, the five-inch Pixel and the 5.5-inch Pixel XL seem no better or worse than any competing smartphone.

Maybe worse.

So an editorial feature from AppleInsider’s Daniel Eran Dilger reveals that, despite having suggested retail prices that are the same as the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, performance is much slower. In fact, it doesn’t quite match that of last spring’s Samsung Galaxy S7. It’s also slower in some respects than an iPhone SE.

A published review from DXOMark, which rates cameras, concludes that the Pixel’s camera “didn’t perform as well as some of the other flagship phones, as it lost details in the shadows.”

So other than the tight integration with Google products and services, and the promise of 24/7 chat and voice support, there’s not really anything distinctive about the new smartphone. So far, it’s only available unlocked from Google or with the usual marketing gimmicks from Verizon Wireless. There’s no such thing as a Google Store to try one out and look at other gear from the company, such as there is.

It may present a reasonable experiment from Google to retest the manufacturing waters, but it’s hard to build a compelling case why any Android user, other than the power user curious about new things, would even care to buy one. Well, perhaps as an alternative to Samsung in light of the latter’s chronic problems with the Galaxy Note 7, and the desire to try something else.

To most people, the name Pixel won’t mean a thing, since the Google connection appears to have second billing. Why not call it a Google Phone? At least there’s brand recognition there. But the real problem is that Google has assembled a box with generic hardware that doesn’t offer the range of distinctive features that would allow it to stand out in a highly competitive market. It’s ho-hum. In a sense, it reminds me of the Amazon Fire Phone, another undistinguished smartphone that quickly crashed and burned.

One would think that if Google needed to make a name for itself as a hardware maker, it would build a device with the absolute fastest processor available. It would sport the best camera, and extra features, such as a fingerprint sensor, a display with enhanced color, stereo speakers and other components that would make it stand out. It also has generic looks that are reminiscent of any other Android handset.

How does a new manufacturer distinguish itself with mediocrity?

Consider the original 2007 iPhone as a means of comparison. Sure, it lacked a number of important features that only arrived later on. There wasn’t even an app store. But it did have a relatively large touchscreen display, a real email app and browser. It was what it was presented to be, a tiny mobile computer that included a telephone.

Perhaps Google will some day turn Pixel, Phone by Google into a product that customers will lust after. Or perhaps it’ll join Nexus handsets and the Amazon Fire Phone in the great dustbin of history. Unless Google delivers a version 2.0 that really and truly looks different and offers some unique features that will really appeal to customers, I don’t think Pixel is destined to go anywhere.

Besides, what are Google’s partners to think about the company pulling a Microsoft on them?