Microsoft To Charge Phone Makers a Licensing Fee

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Microsoft To Charge Phone Makers a Licensing Fee

Posted by Soulskill on Friday October 1, 2010 @05:30AM from the how-magnanimous-of-you dept.

angry tapir writes "Microsoft may be one of the only remaining mobile operating-system providers that charges handset makers a licensing fee, but in exchange vendors get at least one important benefit: protection from intellectual property worries. 'Microsoft indemnifies its Windows Phone 7 licensees against patent infringement claims,' the company said. 'We stand behind our product, and step up to our responsibility to clear the necessary IP rights.'" In related news, Windows Phone 7 will be exclusive to AT&T at launch, and it seems Microsoft is counting on Xbox Live integration to be the "hook" that gets people interested in the new devices.

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This is nothing new by BadAnalogyGuy · 2010-10-01 05:36 · Score: 5, Interesting

Microsoft has never not charged a license fee. It's pretty steep too.
But they keep pushing this indemnification clause as if it provides some kind of true advantage. It does not. First, it only covers the technology in the OS which MS would necessarily have to protect itself from anyway. Second, if a handset maker were to get sued and lose, they would in turn sue MS for damages. And finally, no one has successfully sued a handset maker for infringed patents in operating systems like Linux.
What this tells me is that they haven't changed their selling strategy one bit, and they haven't got the slightest idea how to change it. Whoever is in charge of their mobile division needs to be replaced. They have a technology that is late to the game and a selling strategy that is worthless to anyone with any experience with other operating systems.
1. Re:This is nothing new by UnknowingFool · 2010-10-01 05:59 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  MS is trying to go after their true competitor in the space which is Android. While everyone talks about Apple being their biggest threat, it's really Android because Microsoft's partners and former partners might choose a free and configurable OS over their licensed and increasingly restrictive one. Also considering how MS has screwed over their partners in recent years, some of them might be wary to stay in a partnership with MS. If more and more partners abandon the Windows Mobile framework, there isn't a lot that MS can do except develop their own hardware. Considering their recent history with hardware design, that can't look good. The only success in MS recent history (Xbox, Zune, Kin) has been Xbox but also at the same time it has been unprofitable.
  
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Re:On the desktop, perhaps by obarthelemy · 2010-10-01 06:19 · Score: 2, Interesting

I partly agree. I have an HD2, which uses WinMob 6.5. It's by no means perfect, but way more open than anything Apple (imagine ! drag-and-drop music/movies upload from any PC ! No need to use one specific media player/manager !), is reasonably stable and has the handful of apps I need (browser, media, ereader, RSS).
Winphone7 actually looks worse than 6.5, with Jobsian levels of user lockout and playpenning, and certainly Microsoftian levels of ergonomy and reliability. Talk about best of both worlds...
My bet is MS is once again shooting themselves in the foot by aping Apple instead of going after another market, namely users who actually want a hint of freedom, even at the cost of a smidgen of complexity.

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Re:You get what you pay for. by LostCluster · 2010-10-01 08:53 · Score: 2, Interesting

You misread. Red Hat is a business built around giving the Microsoft-like treatment to Linux. They'll train, support, and give you somebody to complain to when it's not working.