My response from the other thread:
Bummer, that's really bad news. Samsung makes some great smartphone hardware. It's a shame they will be moving away from WP7.
Honestly though I'm not too worried. I've always thought that Nokia will be the real star of the WP7 show. They're IMO the best smartphone hardware manufacturer out there. More importantly, at this point, they're also the ONLY ones who have a real interest in seeing WP7 succeed. The other OEMs are just testing the waters to see if they can make a few extra bucks from WP7 on the side while they get all their real sales from Android.
I also think this greatly increases the chances of MS buying Nokia altogether. The way I see it, MS's strategy has been this:
Plan A: license the OS to 3rd-party manufacturers. Get all the smartphone manufacturers competing against one another, cranking out low-margin hardware with WP7 on it. Rake in the lions share of the profit through OS licenses and by funneling people towards MS's online services. (The PC/Android model)
Plan B: buy Nokia and build the hardware themselves. Possibly even buy RIM if the price is right. Create a vertically-integrated smartphone business where they own the hardware, the OS, the ecosystem, and even the store where the products are sold. It's a risky plan, but the potential profits are far higher than Plan A. (AKA the Apple model, which has made them the most valuable company in the world.)
Not coincidentally, Google took a huge step towards the Apple model when they bought Motorola. Samsung already has their own OS (Bada) and you can bet they want some Apple-like profits for themselves. I think it's very possible that the Apple model is the only business model that can be viable in the long-term -- and I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing.