Last week, we heard a very interesting rumor, suggesting that Microsoft was courting HTC to produce smartphones that would allow users to boot into either Android or Windows Phone, and was motivated enough to make this happen that it would seriously reduce WP8 licensing fees, if not just give HTC access to the platform totally for free. That’s fascinating enough on its own, but now we hear that Microsoft’s ambitions could be even grander, and might involve additional OEMs.

We’re working from a translated Russian report from Eldar Murtazin, so some of the specifics may be lost to the language barrier, but the gist of this is that Microsoft has been talking to both Samsung and Huawei about dual-platform devices of their own.

Now, we’re still waiting to see what ever happens to that Samsung ATIV Q tablet, but while that ran full-on Windows 8, this source mentions a possible Samsung Windows RT/Android tablet for release sometime next year. In addition, we could also see Samsung come out with WP8/Android smartphones; this source claims that any obstacles are licensing-related, not technical, and with Microsoft’s blessing, even that wouldn’t be an issue.

We don’t get any details on what to expect from Huawei, whether tablet, phone, or both, and only hear that it may have received the same sort of blessing from Microsoft to create dual-boot hardware.

Source: Mobile-Review (Google Translate)
Via: phoneArena