Samsung and Dell mobile devices to ship with Microsoft Office - but where does that leave Windows Phone?

Microsoft has persuaded Samsung and a number of other Android device makers to bundle Office and other apps as standard, but will Windows Phone suffer as a result?

Microsoft's apparent strategy to use its software, rather than the Windows Phone operating system, to spearhead its mobile campaign appears to be progressing well following deals with Samsung, Dell and a number of other Android device manufacturers that will see them ship Microsoft Office apps on their mobile devices as standard.

The apps will encompass the full range of Office productivity applications, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, and will be available for both consumers and enterprise buyers.

"In the past year, Microsoft has made a series of moves to win over the hearts and minds of customers," wrote Peggy Johnson, Microsoft's executive vice president of business development, in a blog.

"We've proven that we're not afraid to look outside ourselves to reinvent ourselves. We've received fantastic customer feedback for making Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, OneDrive and Skype available across all platforms.

"But, we're far from done. Now we see an opportunity to turn our focus to our device partners - easing mobile access to great apps and services for customers by pre-installing them directly on the device."

Samsung's decision to install Microsoft Office apps on its new Galaxy S6 device was announced at Mobile World Congress in early March, but the expanded range of devices and deals with the 10 other companies indicate that Microsoft is making headway with its apps across the mobile industry.

Microsoft's Office bundling deals with Android device makers also come with two years of free 100GB OneDrive storage. "Great things happen when you converge services and devices," said Johnson.

But if, as Johnson also said, Microsoft's ongoing cross-platform and cross-device strategy aims to "bring an array of Microsoft services to every person on every device", why would happy Android, or even Apple iOS, customers ever consider shifting to Windows Phone?

Microsoft paid a pretty penny - £4.6bn - for Nokia's mobile phone arm back in 2014, and has so far done little but pump out increasingly cheap variations on the Lumia formula, while quietly retiring the Nokia brand and replacing it with "Windows Phone".

Fully integrated features, such as Office and OneDrive, as well as easier and quicker Outlook and calendar sync, were among the main reasons for enterprises to choose Windows Phone over the past couple of years. Microsoft's under-featured, under-stocked and downright poorly managed app store, however, encouraged many people to carry a second device based on Apple or Google technology as well.

Now that Microsoft's best software is available pre-installed on Android phones, what chance is there now of any "second wind" developing behind Windows Phone, even when the Windows Phone 10 brand launches alongside Windows 10 itself later this year.

While Microsoft's software ecosystem and shared API infrastructure could prove to be an attractive in-house phone platform, Microsoft really is only as a good as its software. And now that's all happily setting up home on Samsung's latest executive toy, it's hard to see what's left for a new Microsoft mobile operating system to truly "own".