Today Microsoft announced that it has signed a cross-licensing patent deal with Samsung, which should help protect both companies from outside attacks in court. Under the terms of the deal Samsung will be paying royalties to Microsoft for every Android smartphone it makes.
Obviously, Samsung feels that either the Google/Motorola deal won't happen fast enough or that it won't do enough to protect its interests at all, so they simply reached an agreement with their other partner.
As a part of the deal, Samsung has also agreed to help in the marketing of the Windows Phone system and collaborate with Microsoft on the development of the platform itself. Apparently, Microsoft was concerned that Samsung would neglect its three recently announced WP7 Omnia devices in favor of the Galaxy lineup.
With Samsung joining HTC as a Microsoft licensee, Android will certainly continue to bring more money to the software giant than its own Windows Phone. Time will tell if Nokia joining the game will change that.
Seeing how things panned out with HTC and Samsung, we should probably also expect Motorola to follow suit. The American manufacturer is currently being sued by Microsoft and we are starting to suspect that it will end with a similar agreement.
