“One of Microsoft’s hottest new profit centers is a smartphone platform you’ve definitely heard of: Android,” Jon Brodkin reports for Network World.
“Google’s Linux-based mobile operating system is a favorite target for Microsoft’s patent attorneys, who are suing numerous Android vendors and just today announced that another manufacturer has agreed to write checks to Microsoft every time it ships an Android device,” Brodkin reports. “Microsoft’s latest target is Wistron Corp., which has signed a patent agreement ‘that provides broad coverage under Microsoft’s patent portfolio for Wistron’s tablets, mobile phones, e-readers and other consumer devices running the Android or Chrome platform,’ Microsoft announced.”
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Brodkin reports, “Just last week, Microsoft announced Android agreements with Velocity Micro, General Dynamics and Onkyo Corp. Since Microsoft is making the announcements one by one, there could be more coming this week.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Attribution: FOX News. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Ragu” for the heads up.]
One word: schadenfreude.
I suppose that if I had absolutely no product to compete with Android, I too would find some other way to get on the gravy train. Ironically, Apple can’t afford to simply take the money.
Given Google’s weakness on the patent/IP front, I’m really not sure Android has a future in 3 years. Apple and Microsoft have both wisely gone after phone manufacturers, who may find using Android to be more trouble than it’s worth.
Give MS a little credit here, WP7 may be behind but at least it’s not a blatant copy of iOS, the way Android is.
I agree. I also applaud them for coming up with a unique and novel IU.
Unique and novel? Yes. Useful? No.
Notice I stopped at “unique and novel”. 😉
Novel describes it perfectly …..
Yeah, at least MS was smart enough to know they’d get sued by Apple. The drawback is, because it’s not an interface that emulates iOS, it sucks. I’ve used it and, unless you plan on having only 6 apps, the UI sucks for app whores like me.
“Give MS a little credit here, WP7 may be behind but at least it’s not a blatant copy of iOS …”
Yeah, Microsoft was really pushing their touchscreen smart phones, with the Microsoft “App” store, and then Apple came along and did the same thing with the iPhone?
Whoa.
Just because a copy isn’t as blatant as some-one else’s copy, doesn’t mean it’s not still a copy.
And you want to give Microsoft credit for that?
Geez, the standard has gotten pretty low here, hasn’t it?
This is actually a good thing for Apple. Part of what is so compelling about Android is that vendors get to rip off iOS without investing anything. If M$ can continue to win lawsuits and get vendors to pay them royalties, then one of the major advantages to using Android (that it’s basically “free”) is diminished and it makes it harder for other vendors to compete (read: steal iOS’s features) and Google has less incentive to continue to develop it.
Ideally (in my mind) one of two things happens: 1) Google decides it’s not worth it and gives up, or 2) They start to actually innovate and competition makes everything better for us, the consumers.
This approach gives MS a couple options going forwards.
1. Keep raking in the royalties or..
2. Offer OEMs somewhat lower royalties IF they build WinMo phones too, or…
3. Offer OEMs, very, very low royalties if they build WinMo exclusively. For companies like LG that are struggling with Android, this might be an option.
Android: the most expensive free gift the consumers, telcos and OEMs ever received.
re: #3- if they make WinMo’s exclusively, why would there be -any- android royalties?
Good for MS & others to fight over the table scraps on the floor. In a few years the floor ought to be licked clean.
I’ve never been fond of scavenging hyenas or herds of wildebeests that hand over their babies to them for lunch.
However, it all serves to put a price tag on Android, albeit via illegal extortion, entirely to the benefit of Apple. Thanks MegaloManiaSoft.
The funniest part of it all is that analysts think Micro$loth is making more money from these OEMs than on their own Winblows ’07 platform.
I don’t think analysts “think”, I think we all know that Microsoft is making more on Android than it is making on WP7 licensing. Reportedly, they make $5 a phone from HTC. Gartner says 1.6M WP7 phones sold in Q1. Add it up, and it’s pretty clear, Microsoft wins when it loses.
I believe those are the ‘droids you are looking for….lol
android just became microsoft’s bitch. damn that sux for a FREE OS…muahaha. I think that 15 dollars a phone is probably eliminating the rest of the profit that was left on the manufacturing costs.
I think as time goes on and if MS pushes too hard on the fees we’ll just see a large group of the handset makers band together and start challenging MS’s patents.
Seriously this needs to happen at some point anyway since MS is essentially claiming that Linux infringes on some 200+ of their patents.
As for Google they can give up on Android any day they like. Another company can just pick up the source, change the name and keep on producing the software. Maybe someone who has deep pockets and a commitment to slapping MS in the face.
Time will tell. I doubt Android is going anywhere. The Genie is out of the bottle so to speak.
I doubt they will fight MS for the following reasons:
1. There may be no way around MS’s patents, whether using Android or another OS (besides iOS, which they obviously can’t use). So a different OS may infringe upon the same patents.
2. If the handset makers drop Android, what to they go to? They would be better off banding together to develop their own OS, but they could never agree on anything to get that done.
3. Developing an OS is a tough, dangerous thing. First, you need the talent to develop it. Second, you will have to license technology from someone, because developing everything yourself is either impossible, impossibly expensive and time consuming, or would just violate someone’s patent anyway.
4. Apple will just make them pay royalty fees that they would have paid MS anyway, or new ones under Nortel’s former LTE patents.
as I said before by the time Apple, Oracle, Msft, etc are done with their patent lawsuits, future Android devices to avoid royalites will be two tin cans linked by a piece of string…
When you factor in Google’s “Lulz bidding” and subsequent loss of the Nortel patents to Apple, MSFT et al, Google has potential taken on even more exposure. How much longer are manufacturers are going to stay interested in the “free” Android. And this is before the Oracle suit gets traction – if it ever does.
Kind of funny that the Android-manufacturer experience parallels the Android-consumer experience: you get it cheaper up front but get nickel-and-dimed to death in the long haul.
The irony is on Google: Microsoft earns profit on Android and Google gets nothing.
Google was never in it for the direct profits; very little of what they do is directly profitable. They make their money in advertising. Whether Android in its current form is around in a few years is neither here nor there for Google. They’ve planted the advertising seeds they wanted in the mobile realm.
Besides, Google has always had a bit of an attention deficit disorder; I question whether it’s in their nature to sustain Android long-term. Either way, Google has achieved their goal – to support their advertising-based business model.
““Just last week, Microsoft announced Android agreements with . . . ”
SUCKERS.
A new disease in the computer community: When it’s cheaper to pay extortion fees to criminal companies than it is to challenge their BS in court.