This makes it even more obvious that Microsoft pretty much owns Nokia, so the situation is not much different than Google owning Motorola. Why else would they invite their own competitors to compete with them? Would Samsung go out and say "Please, we need more companies to compete with us!" ?<p>The Microsoft-Nokia situation is actually worse for the others,because Nokia actually does have a <i>special</i> deal with Microsoft for WP7, and their other partners would not be equal to Nokia at all. Plus, Android phones are selling in millions. WP7 ones are not. So that's at least 2 huge reasons, why even now, the WP7 deal would still make manufacturers worse off than with Android.<p>Also, I don't think the acquisition of Motorola will slow Android down. In fact, I think it will help it grow even faster now that more companies will step out into the light and start developing for Android. I'm sure there are quite a few companies out there who preferred to stay out of it until this patent issue was resolved. And I'm not even talking only about the smartphone industry here. Android could be used to make a lot more types of devices "smart". So Motorola acquisition and their patents should help catalyze those markets.