First-order effects

• Windows Mobile drops from being Acer's smartphone baseline to a minority track, since at least half of the models Acer launches in 2010 will be Android-based even as confirmed reporting says Windows Mobile development continues.
• Google gains another major PC-brand OEM shipping Android hardware at volume, adding Acer to the roster of Taiwanese vendors betting shelf space on the platform.

Second-order effects

• Microsoft faces shrinking licensed-device commitments from exactly the kind of high-volume PC OEMs that once anchored Windows Mobile, pressuring its licensing model just as free Android removes per-unit OS cost from Acer's bills.
• Acer's app-store ambitions become dependent on the Android developer ecosystem — Distimo's August 2009 research showed Android users buying more tools and applications than other categories — pulling Acer toward Google's marketplace gravity rather than its own storefront.

Third-order effects

• If half-and-half becomes the floor rather than the ceiling, handset differentiation for PC brands migrates from which OS they license to what services and storefronts they layer on top, weakening Microsoft's grip on the mobile stack.
• The open-source criticism circulating in late September 2009 notwithstanding, vendor-by-vendor defections of this kind point toward Android consolidating as the default OS for manufacturers without their own mobile software heritage.