With Motorola's sudden departure from the Symbian alliance last month, Microsoft pulled off what had appeared to be an impossible coup. In one go, they switched from being a mobile phone also-ran to staking a clear claim on the future of the smartphone market.
And in the past week comes confirmation of rumours that Motorola's next move will be to release its first smartphone running Microsoft's Smartphone 2003 operating system.
Neither company has confirmed a release date, or even a name for the phone, but it is likely that the first phone from the pair will come out this year.
Motorola's launch of a Microsoft Smartphone was no surprise. The company has always devoted more effort to Java than Symbian, and has been working with Microsoft on Windows CE devices on and off for six years.
Like Samsung, which supports Palm, Linux and Microsoft, Motorola is testing the waters, and nobody expects it to abandon Java. All the big handset manufacturers, including Motorola, have long made clear their discomfiture over Microsoft's potentially massive influence in the industry.
Taiwanese manufacturers have no such doubts. For a country whose economy has developed in the cause of manufacturing services rather than branding, partnering with Microsoft is an easy decision. Until now, Microsoft's chief allies in the handset business have been firms such as HTC and Chi Mei Communication Systems, which is producing the Motorola phone.
Even with phones on the market from Siemens and Hitachi, most products to reach stores so far have been branded not by handset makers but by telecoms operators that want phones which support data services, and to break away from their own dependence on the big five phone brands.
