A survey held by Morgan Stanley shows that in the US during Q4, 300,000 Android phones were sold while Apple sold 1.75 million iPhones. That’s about 6 iPhones to 1 Android.

Now while Google still has to play catch up, the above figures are only based on two of its mobile manufacturing partners – HTC & T-Mobile. Soon enough we should see Motorola, LG, Sony Ericsson et al.

Surprising figures? Not really. iPhone always had an edge over Google’s acquired Android. Best network operator (AT&T rated 1, while T-Mobile rated at 4), better user experience, better multimedia and even better software.

And software is the key point here – the infamous App Store. That’s Apple’s additional revenue model. For Google? It’s not about selling their Android platform – no no no, it’s about making it easier to get it’s users to use Google services to then see (and hopefully click) on their ads.

Does that mean once we have more manufacturers using Android, we may see a sizable increase in revenue for Google? Unknown…

Don’t forget Google can still be accessed on the iPhone. I mean, I use them when I do a web search on my phone, but do I click on their ads? Well, not really.

So where does Microsoft fit in all this? Recently, they have announced that along with the next version of Windows Mobile, they will also release – guess what – an app store!

It’s called the “SkyMarket”. And along with SkyMarket, Microsoft will also launch “SkyBox” (similar to MobileMe to sync emails, contacts, and other data) and “SkyLine” – similar to SkyBox, but for small businesses.

Now, I’m assuming that the SkyBox will be free (or peanuts) unless they plan to make it work for non Windows devices – like a Nokia N95, iPhone or Android for that matter.

However, all this has been done – it’s not cutting edge. What we’re seeing is a company following the footpaths of the successful ones.

Still, Apple is holding it’s ground pretty well.

No doubt some of you have heard that Jerry Yang has stepped down from Yahoo!.

Jerry joined Yahoo at a tough time back in July 2007. 7 months after his appointment, and Yahoo had to lay off staff in Feb 08. And as I mentioned earlier, Yahoo his expecting to lay off more staff by Christmas.

Shortly after the Feb 08 layoffs, there was the Microsoft bid. I think Jerry should have taken that deal. I mean, most of the analyst thought it was a dumb thing not to. Now, Yahoo! is worth a third of Microsoft’s initial US$45 billion offer.

Then there was the opportunity to partner up with Google and have Google sell their ads, which would have added an approximate $800 million a year to Yahoo’s bottom line. However Google pulled the plug on that deal due to regulatory objections. On Nov 11th, the share price for Yahoo! went up as analysts believed that Microsoft would make another offer since Google threw Yahoo out on the highway. But those rumours were dismissed by Yahoo spokesman Tracy Schmaler – who also denied that Jerry was on his way out.

We then have Carl Icahn, the man who owned a good amount of Yahoo! shares and pressed hard to get Yahoo back in talking with Microsoft for a takeover bid. With that failing, Carl tried to get on the Yahoo!’s board of directors. Yang and the board at that time put a notice on Yahoo!’s homepage suggesting that Carl didn’t know what he was talking about. Days after Carl got his seat on the board.

Sorry Jerry – but being a founder of a giant company doesn’t always mean that you’re the best CEO to run it. Back to Chief Yahoo! is it for you.

Now that Jerry is out, what is Carl’s plans for Yahoo!?

Yahoo!’s stock jumped up after Jerry’s announcement, on the hope that Microsoft may come back with another offer.

Steve, US$45 billion divided by 3 – it’s not hard.

Come November 19th and Microsoft will unleash it’s new Dashboard to all XBOX 360 consoles.

It is expected to be completely brand new and different to the existing “blade” theme that we current 360 gamers use. Microsoft names it “The New Xbox Experience“.

Users can create avatars to represent themselves when online (similar to the Wii). Like the screenshot below, users can choose a “base avatar” and customise it from there. It is assumed that new customisation features (like clothing & accessories) will be added on in the future to enable more variety.

The new Dashboard system apparently also loads the entire game on to the Hard Drive for quicker loading and play time (however, the original DVD must still be in the drive).

The new dashboard also connects to Netflix for video content (not sure if this will have limitation in certain countries).

Microsoft seems to geared this new Dashboard towards a social networking environment as well as pushing it’s Marketplace content. Both would be revenue streams for them.

Hopefully this system will take off by the most frequent 360 gamers, though be prepared for the usual criticism.