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Microsoft Now Collects Royalties From Over Half of All Android Devices
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has inked a deal with Compal Electronics, which pumps out gadgets that run Android and Chrome OS, for an undisclosed sum."
Microsoft has an explanatory weblog post; with this deal over half of all Android devices are licensing patents from Microsoft. Notably refusing to cooperate and instead opting for the court battle route are Motorola and Barnes and Noble.
just a reminder to us that Microsoft hasn't become any less evil just because apple are pushing the boundaries of evil.
I will buy the droid razr and the next nook color because of this and because they are great devices not made by cowardly companies.
oh and Microsoft, please sue amazon please, that might turn out to be fun.
this is pure extortion 'you violate our patents we can't tell you which ones'. Why don't you pay us a small percentage of your sales to make the problem go away?
I don't get it, is this somehow android's fault, that microsoft is extorting android using patents, this is android's fault?
Of course it's Android's (Google's) fault. They are giving away stuff that doesn't belong to them. Requiring people to pay royalties for things covered under patents isn't extortion.
Android violates patents. People on Slashdot really need to get over their reactionary fear of the patent system and acknowledge that Google copied other people's ideas in the creation of its advertising platform, er, mobile operating system. You can try to portray it any way you want, but even Google knew Android stepped on several patents, as detailed in internal emails. If Android was truly free, there wouldn't be all these royalties getting paid.
Android is an asshole move anyway--it's Google trying to pump its product into a non-core market by giving it away at a price competitors can't compete with, funded by revenue in another market in which it has a monopoly. Gee, which company has done that before that Slashdotters bash all the time? But it's okay this time because it's Google and Linux. Such a childish double standard.
Expecting the usual downmods for not spouting the conventional opinion around here.