They're all hostages of patents and Google has an opportunity to stage a breakout. It could not go that way of course, but the opportunity is certainly there. I'd love to see Google play absolute hardball on anyone who comes after their Android partners.
Google's been withholding source code for Android lately. If they decide not to give access to the Android Marketplace, Google Maps etc to an OEM for any reason, the OEM is as good as finished, since forking the OS is a big deal.
While patents are a thorn on the side, they do not threaten the bread and butter of OEMs like even just delaying the release of source code(that the new Moto division already has from a long time prior) does.
