Depending on how you look at the smartphone world, Android is in the driving seat. By other measurements, it’s comfortably in second place. But not every company is happy to use Android in their smartphones, and 2013 will see a number of alternatives. Why are many of them relying on Android to break free from Android?

Take the latest challenger in the smartphone world, BlackBerry’s Z10. The number of applications for the BB10 platform has been promoted heavily, and while questions remain about the quality of the apps compared to the quantity, reaching 100,000 available titles in time for this weekend’s US launch is impressive.

BlackBerry are cagey on how many of these are retooled Android applications in their recent press releases, but at the start of February the total was around 40%. If that’s still true, over 40,000 BlackBerry apps are derived from Android.

Jolla, the Finnish start-up with a significant number of former Nokia employees, is behind the Sailfish OS, which is expected to launch on hardware during 2013. That OS also promotes compatibility with Android applications, through the Alien Dalvik layer.

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Read also:

BlackBerry Will Try to Woo Android, iOS Users With Mobile Takeover Ad (Mashable)

Evernote Sees Higher ARPU on Windows Phone Than Android (The Next Web)

Sorry Blackberry, Z10 Won't Save You: Analyst (CNBC.com)

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