Microsoft Pays $44 Million To Samsung and Nokia For Mango Marketing

CSHARP123 writes "Ballmer opened up the company's coffers to Nokia and Samsung for a holiday blitz of Mango marketing. Hold onto your hats though, it's no carte blanche access to Redmond's Gringotts. According to a report on Mobile Magazine, inside sources claim MS has set aside £28 million (about $44 million) for the endeavor, with about £20 million of that reserved for Nokia's first Windows Phone 7.5 handset. This joint marketing effort is reportedly a broader extension of the cooperative agreements all parties agreed to, ensuring future WP devices get the media saturation they deserve. Samsung is also due to unveil a major Christmas ad push for the Omnia W with an estimated £8m spend. Maybe this is what Samsung gets for making a deal on patents to cover Android OS? Not a bad deal for Samsung."

Re:Huh? What's "mango"?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're saying that Microsoft has selling versions of Windows for smartphones since 2002, and you're hoping that maybe by next year they'll finally make a version that is good enough for you to buy?

I hope Microsoft doesn't pay you to shill for them. They're wasting their money.

Microsoft strategy

[Emetophobe]

Step 1. Collect patent royalties from every Android device that Samsung sells
Step 2. Turn around and give that money back to Samsung to push Windows Phone 7
Step 3. ???
Step 4. Profit

Re:A Million Each!

[aztracker1]

There are plenty of .Net binaries that run cross platform... Mainly those designed with portability in mind... I suppose you could list the number of gtk+ or qt based apps that are magically cross platform? Cross platform support for a complex application isn't always a simple thing... And in Java dependencies on on native libraries is even harder to support cross platform than with .Net.

That aside... I don't trust MS to keep supporting their phone platform infrastructure yet. It's outside their core structure, and MS has a history of dropping edge case support.

Re:A Million Each!

[Microlith]

If Microsoft had any faith in their ability to make great products, they would have been one of the first to jump on Android and made a must-have Android phone that kicks the iPhones arse.

Microsoft never could have done this, as they have set themselves up as an insular platform vendor that not use outside technologies unless forced to. They absolutely would not release something with their name on it that ran something developed by Google, much less Linux.

They invented their own and are trying to win by making deals with other companies to spread fear and doubt about patents and lawsuits.

Rather, they have placed a new UI on the Windows CE core and added all the proprietary goop you asked for. MS is doing exactly what you suggested, but doubling down on the FUD to try and drive other vendors off the platform of a competitor and on to theirs.