Count me as among the dubious when it comes to Microsoft's quest to dominate mobile devices as it does the desktop. But just because Windows Phone 7 might not supplant iOS and Android anytime soon, that doesn't mean Microsoft won't still rake in a helluva lot of money off the handset/tablet market, according to this fascinating tidbit from InformationWeek's Microsoft blog:

Android, the number-one smartphone platform, doesn't generate any direct revenue for Google since it is an open source platform. It does, however, generate a tidy sum for Microsoft. HTC reportedly pays Microsoft $5 for every HTC phone sold that has Android loaded on it.

HTC, the leading manufacturer of Android phones, is estimated to have shipped about 30 million units. So that $5 per phone license fee would come to about $150 million. Sweet.

And it's only likely to get sweeter. The intellectual property rights underlying Android are widely acknowledged to be a total fucking mess, making it the subject of numerous patent infringement lawsuits... infringements for which Google does not indemnify Android licensees. Building on its HTC deal, Microsoft is suing other Android manufacturers, and is now reportedly seeking payments of between $7.50 and $12.50 per device. That starts to add up to real money, even by Microsoft's inflated standards.

Of course, as InformationWeek's Ed Hansberry and others point out, the real motive behind Microsoft's patent strategy is to pressure device makers to switch from Android to WP7. Margins are already vanishingly thin for nearly every device maker not named Apple, and by squeezing them further, Microsoft could ultimately make a WP7 license more affordable than the putatively free Android. But either way, it looks like a Win win-win for the folks in Redmond.