With sales of smartphones and feature phones booming, it makes sense for wireless carriers to develop close relationships with OS developers and handset makers in order to get exclusive devices to sell on their networks. Verizon and Google announced a new agreement today that will result in the joint development of Android handsets.

The agreement will have the two companies devoting resources for jointly developing, distributing, and marketing handsets that run Android. The devices will come with apps crated by Verizon, Google, and third-party developers pre-installed.

Neither firm will say what phone maker will build the handsets resulting from the agreement. All they will say is that leading manufacturers will build the handsets. We can bet among those will be Motorola and HTC.