Motorola's Windows Phone 7 plans "open" despite recent patent suit

You can't have missed Motorola's Android push over the past few months – with another few handsets making their official debut in the past 24 hours – but the company isn't counting out Windows Phone 7.  After Microsoft filed a lawsuit against Motorola on Friday, alleging patent infringement by the company's Android line-up, Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha has said that lawsuits of this sort are just "part of business" and that his company is "open to finding ways to work with Microsoft, but it has to be a compelling offering."

Motorola abandoned Windows Mobile back in Q4 2009, stating at the time that it would be waiting until Windows Phone 7 before reconsidering the platform.  According to Jha, the company's engineers are yet to have played with the new version of the OS, but he has heard that "it is a rational offering."

Faint praise, perhaps, but Motorola's device investment in Android has helped not only the company itself reclaim market share but helped drive positive brand recognition of the Google platform.  That's likely a halo effect Microsoft would like a piece of, and with HP taking the decision to abandon Windows Phone 7 development and instead focus on webOS the company could certainly do with another high-profile name in their corner.