> It's like newspapers handing out free copies to hotels to boost their circulation figures.

With the important distinction people actually read those newspapers.

And even the Daily Mail can be used to line the cat's litter tray!

Um -- have you seen what happens to the newspapers given away in hotels?

Have you seen what happens to WP7 licenses that are not used in actual phones?

Me neither.

Evidence?

You'd have to wait for a lawsuit for this kind of thing to come to light. Deals like this could be concealed in incentive tiers across products. Say, you buy 1M WP7 licenses for your future phones and you enter a tier where your Win7 license cost decreases enough to offset the cost of the WP7 licenses, plus a small incentive. Your WP7 licenses came, essentially, for free and they can brag about how OEMs are enthusiastic about WP7 and how that dooms the iPhone 5 or whatever other MacGuffin you choose to attract media attention.

That could be true, but it's basically idle speculation at this point. It's like accusing someone of murder and when asked for evidence, stating that the evidence will come out when the person is interrogated. Eh?

You can't say they hadn't manipulated license costs before.