HTC Is Paying Microsoft $5 For Every Android Phone 261
jcarr writes "According to Citi analyst Walter Pritchard, HTC is paying Microsoft $5 for each Android phone it makes. This may be related to a report from last year: MS and HTC sign patent deal. So now we can't even write a free OS?"
not every phone (Score:4, Informative)
just the phones sold in the USA, Microsoft patents aren't valid anywhere else (95% of the globe)
Re:I look at this as a good thing (Score:5, Informative)
- Give people easy ways to navigate through information provided by their device apps via a separate control window with tabs;
- Enable display of a webpage's content before the background image is received, allowing users to interact with the page faster;
- Allow apps to superimpose download status on top of the downloading content;
- Permit users to easily select text in a document and adjust that selection; and
- Provide users the ability to annotate text without changing the underlying document.
This is the Microsoft tax all over again, in the form of a multi-billion patent troll. Others can't innovate around Microsoft because Microsoft is the anti-competitive assclown it's always been. Regulators and legislators take notice!! Get rid of software patents already.
Re:What did Microsoft invent? (Score:2, Informative)
Trouble is HTC are paying Microsoft for inventions Microsoft didn't make. HTC interface is not the crappy Microsoft one, and the underlying OS predates Microsofts entry into the handset market
Android predates neither WinMo, nor WinCE, sorry.
That's what it comes down to, MS has convinced them that Microsoft can make everyone's life so difficult that HTC can gain an advantage simply by paying the fee.
More likely they're paying for a license to use patented Microsoft tech, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's sad really, they sue and they're the bad guy, they play nice and approach infringers, offering a chance to negotiate a license peacefully, and they're still the bad guy. You don't want to deal with patents, avoid infringing on them and innovate.
. That's why MS isn't trying to go after Google directly, rather picking off smaller players.
Is it really? Microsoft really doesn't have much of a history of litigation, and even less one of frivolous litigation, besides that the challenges doesn;t actually show anything, as far as I can tell, there's been no judgment on the case, and therefore all any of this really says is that Microsoft says B&N is infringing, and B&N says they aren't.
For all we know, Google has a license for the same patents. And where do you get "picking off" from? They're not even being the slightest bit hostile, the patents in question are available under RAND, and they tried for a year to negotiate with B&N (which is the opposite of "picking off") , they're asserting their IP, and being nice about it.
Not everything they do is outright malicious.
Re:Software Patents. (Score:5, Informative)
"Knowledge Sir, should be free to all." ----Harcourt Fenton Mudd
(in response to an accusation by James T. Kirk that he didn't pay royalties on patents.)
Star Trek Original Series Season 2 Episode 8 - "I, Mudd" (1967)
Time of quote in Episode: 13:37
Can I FINALLY get my nerd card now?
Re:Don't sign dumb deals (Score:4, Informative)
Nope. They are plain vanilla Android phones. HTC makes other phones (with identical or nearly identical hardware) that run Microsoft software. This looks more like classic Microsoft scam when they ask "per processor" fee for all hardware produced -- regardless if it does or doesn't run anything from Microsoft.