An example of this kind of battle during last century was the one between IBM and Microsoft. OS/2 was more stable and advanced (multitasking) compared to Windows versions available at that time. It was taken quite well in corporate environment, but did not really ever take of among wider consumer audience.
I have a bit same feeling when observing current struggle between platforms for smartphones. Being able to figure out what is the appealing thing for consumers may again play crucial role for future of winning platform. Interesting to see if history replays itself and there will be one dominant platform complemented with few special interest group platforms and naturally open source platforms.