Microsoft recently announced that it has entered into a deal with 11 Android OEMs, including Samsung, to provide the services rendered by the Redmond, Washington-based tech giant to tablets as well as other devices running on Google's Android OS. As per the deal, these Android devices will have preloaded apps like Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, OneDrive, OneNote and Skype.

A recent report by Tech Radar says that apart from a partnership with Samsung, which was announced at MWC 2015 in Barcelona, Spain, Microsoft stated that the company has entered into separate deals with Dell, TrekStor, Casper, Datamatic, DEXP, Hipstreet, QMobile, JP Sa Couto, Tecno, and Pegatron.

A statement issued by Peggy Johnson, Microsoft executive vice president business development, reads, "For OEMs, these deals will increase the value of and enrich people's experiences on Android devices."

The statement further says, "And for Microsoft, this is part of the company's mobile-first, cloud-first vision. It is addressing consumer demand for top services by making them already available on a device, instead of requiring consumers to download them separately."

In other words, henceforth Microsoft apps as well as services will ship together with Google's apps and services like Gmail, Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Sheets, and Google Slides out of the box. Although this relationship will be competitive, it will be profitable too.

Even as Microsoft is competing with Android in the mobile domain with its Windows Phone platform, which will soon be retitled as Windows 10 for phones, historically, the company has enjoyed a lucrative relationship with Android manufacturers. Currently, Microsoft has licensing contracts with top Android OEMs even for patents that Android encroaches on.

In very recent times, Microsoft was entangled in a lawsuit with Samsung over due royalties on licensing, and now it is not clear if the most recent agreement with the South Korean tech manufacturer to pre-load Microsoft apps on its Android devices, such as the latter's flagship devices Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge, is a fall-out of that lawsuit.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has also teamed up with Xiaomi to develop a custom ROM for the Chinese tech manufacturer's Android devices to run Windows Phone rather than Android.