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Foxconn Signs Massive Android Patent Agreement With Microsoft
Pikoro writes with news that Foxconn's parent company has entered into an agreement to pay Microsoft royalties for every Android device they manufacture, joining a rather long list of companies licensing patents for Android/Linux from Microsoft. From the BBC: "Microsoft has secured a patent deal with the world's biggest consumer electronics manufacturer to receive fees for devices powered by Google's Android and Chrome operating systems. Hon Hai — the parent company of Foxconn — said the deal would help prevent its clients being caught up in an ongoing intellectual property dispute. Microsoft says that Google's code makes use of innovations it owns. Google alleges its rival's claims are based on 'bogus patents.' 'The patents at issue cover a range of functionality embodied in Android devices that are essential to the user experience, including: natural ways of interacting with devices by tabbing through various screens to find the information they need; surfing the web more quickly, and interacting with documents and e-books.'"
Our own capitalist masters in America maintain their superirority over the upstart bourgeoisie of Taiwan! Horay for the American bourgeoisie! Get ready for world war III! Profits! Profits! Profits!
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Beware all stories with "Massive" in the headline.
Microsoft loses nothing because they are collecting for these patents. Likely they are trying to collect enough that even if they lose them in court, their court costs are covered by the patent fees. Meanwhile they have effectively sown a cloud of trouble over Android even though they (microsoft) don't even have anything competitive in this market.
Tl;dr -- it galls me, the chutzpah of these assholes!
C|N>K
Also, how can you tell it is "massive". It looks like all details are confidential. It is unclear which patents are involved, what FoxCon gets in return, how much money is exchanging hands, what is really "covered" by the agreement, etc. It might as well be a "tiny: deal, just focussed on "massive" publicity: "We don't really have anything but with patents you can always do some handwaving, so lets put out a press release how good friends we are, generate some publicity to show Microsoft is still relevant and what a friendly company Foxcon is. As long as they spell our names right any publicity is good publicity. Deal?".
Please, go right ahead
Evil should not make you wish to hurt....yourself.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Why the ***k isn't Google challenging this one? I don't get it.
Before everyone gets in a twist. Remember MS was in the phone market for 9-10 years before iPhone/Android... They may have some patents here. They did extensive work in this field. Also remember patents expire eventually. I remember people walking around proudly with their ipaq's and chicklet wince phones and spouting how the dreamcast runs wince.
Let me put it to you this way. When MS and the OEMs first came out with the WinCE phone people were excited (windows in my pocket). The actual result was awful. However MS was up to basically the 7 or 8th version of wince before iPhone came out (and apple blew them away).
MS put a ton of work into this. Sure it is MS (or M$ as a lot of people like to say). But in this case I think they may deserve a bit of recompense. There will probably be a few of you out there that disagree with me and call me a troll. But I saw the amount of work they put into it. It was blindingly obvious that they worked really hard on it. It just rather bad at what it was supposed to do.
If you agree with Microsoft's position, and believe that they're owed licensing fees, fine: just be aware that the cost of the licensing fees is being passed on to the consumer.
If you don't agree with Microsoft's position, one thing you can do is to not purchase from any company participating in such agreements. Even better: purchase from a company that isn't, and send a letter to a company that is, so they understand that they're cutting off their own air supply.
If you want to make something go away, make it unprofitable for the parties involved.
Koans and fables for the software engineer
I can see why they agreed to pay.
Foxcon legal department assessed the cost of litigation to fight against bogus patents potentially higher than just pay those damn mafioso.
Also the behavior of the US justice in Apple vs Samsung may have told them that the mafioso business of extortion through patents is somewhat tolerated in this country. Well not much different finally than doing business in China, but at least in China the extortion by the members of the army or the Central Committee is not hiding behind patent laws and China never pretended to be a free market.
http://www.transparency.org
Now even if you aren't a customer of Microsoft you're a customer of Microsoft!
Should we be using Microsoft for Android customer service calls now?
As fashionable as it is to hate Microsoft and gripe about how badly Windows 8 sucks, the fact IS that Windows Mobile WAS groundbreaking back in the early 00s. It might have been utterly dysfunctional out of the box as an operating system for making voice calls, but as the operating system for a pocket-sized laptop with wireless data capabilities, it picked up the ball where Palm dropped it and ran even harder. Had Microsoft left well enough alone, and reacted to Android by creating proper APIs for implementing alternative 'phone' and 'launcher/homescreen' thirdparty apps (instead of delegating the task to HTC and calling it a day, then later throwing the baby out with the bathwater so it could port Danger's OS from Java to C# and rebrand it as "Windows Phone"), WinMo8, 9, or 10 would have been a strong alternative to Android today instead of the crippled, unloved, locked-down joke we have now that's turned into a cancer destroying desktop Windows as well.
Lots of the things we take for granted in Android were "there" and worked fine in Windows Mobile 5/6, too... and more importantly (for patent purposes), did NOT work well AT ALL in PalmOS (if they worked at all), and barely worked in Android & IOS until 2010 and beyond. The biggest single problem high-end WinMo phones had was hardware -- US Carriers weren't in any hurry to push the envelope, and HTC was perfectly content to give them the minimum they asked for. And HTC made the ill-conceived decision to eliminate the 'windows' and 'ok' hardkeys in an effort to be more iPhone-like, without stopping to consider the fact that all of Microsoft's usability testing up to that point TOOK FOR GRANTED that the device would have two physical buttons that required at least a little bit of physical force to trigger (hence, the in-pocket touchscreen activations that caused endless misery if you got a text message or phone call that went straight to voicemail).
Anyway, the point is that once in a great while, Microsoft *does* manage to do something right, even if it completely drops the ball in other related areas. WinMo had plenty of warts, but circa 2005/2006, it WAS pretty much the best thing you could get if you wanted wireless internet connectivity in a device that could (sort of) limp along and make voice calls in a pinch. And it sure as HELL beat walking around with a Palm Vc or Handspring Visor and $129 18" cable to plug it into your clamshell phone for data a few years earlier, or limping with a later PalmOS phone that was good for making voice calls and managing an address book, but fell flat on its face the moment you tried doing anything that involved realtime network communication with a responsive UI (the UI froze whenever the phone was sending or receiving data due to the way PalmOS Garnet's network stack was stapled onto it as an afterthought).
Also, I believe a big chunk of Microsoft's patent portfolio came from its acquisition of Danger (the Sidekick's maker), which had plenty of its own innovations.
Bogus deal, Foxconn only makes the hardware not the device. It's a contract manufacturer. This will cover only devices Hon Hai make for itself which presumably why the strange wording of the press release, talking about HonHai while implying it covers Foxconn's contract manufacturing.
"While the contents of the agreement are confidential, the parties indicate that Microsoft will receive royalties from Hon Hai under the agreement."
Hon hai is not Foxconn, as I said Foxconn is a contract manufacturer, it competes with everyone else to manufacture devices. If they tried to add a fee, they'd simply price themselves out of the market, Hon Hai on the other hand does make a few devices, and this cover those.
Hon Hai also are fools to pay the Danegeld because Microsoft has a lot of these fluff troll patents and has donated many to 'independent' third party trolls. Sooner or later the next troll will demand money, and the next and the next.
So how much more money is Microsoft making off of Android than they are off of their own phones?
Doesn't the usual life cycle of a company typically end with it becoming an patent troll as it nears the end of its life? When Kodak, Polaroid, Xerox and other companies were struggling to stay alive during massive changes in the market, they managed to extend the life of their company by a few years by by gong on a patent licensing crusade. The real tell for Microsoft will be if its patent licensing ever becomes the majority revenue maker in the company. That's generally the true sign that the end is near.
It's certainly not a good sign for the future of Microsoft's mobile business if they are making more money off of a competitor's product than their own.
More likely I say you should pay me for the use of the index finger. You agree, all too readily, you will pay me for that middle finger usage.
Shortly afterwards we announce an unrelated joint deal to promote something, which involves large amounts of money from me to you. You pay me my (undisclosed) but likely tony token fee, and we do our joint promotion. So for Samsung this was a subsidy on the Windows Phone from Microsoft.
Outside viewers smell a rat, but the companies concerned are under NDA and nothing short of an anti-trust cartel investigation will open that can of worms. Reminds me of Intel and its "you pay a fortune for our chips and we'll pay you promotion fees back, but only if you don't also use AMD chips". It tooks years before the anti-trust lot tackled that game.
In effect Microsoft has bought an anti-competition agreement hidden behind a patent license. But how can you prove it, when they don't even list the patents supposedly being licensed?
Can I have your iPad when you're gone?
So to paraphrase your post. Basically they tweaked PalmOS.
If their patents had any value, you wouldn't have to cover them with an NDA before listing them. If their patent list can't stand scrutiny then the patents themselves can't have value that stands up to scrutiny.
Normally when Slashdot discusses patents there's a number, the magic patent number, the thing that's remarkably missing with Microsoft. The last one they made the mistake of being open with, was long filenames in a filetable, later invalidated because Amiga had it sooner.
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/03/ms-patent/
I don't think the publicity aims to show that Microsoft is relevant or that Foxcon is friendly company. It aims to show Android OEMs that they must pay when Microsoft visits them.
I'm voting with my wallet. I'm definitely not going to be buying an iPhone made by Foxxcon. Who's with me?
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
"The patents at issue cover... surfing the web more quickly"
Brilliant, if you're not the fastest just patent the idea of being fast and sue everyone.
As fashionable as it is to hate Microsoft and gripe about how badly Windows 8 sucks
People aren't emotional over Microsoft they just recognise that Microsoft is not a good company, and Windows 8 is single handedly killing off Desktop industry (4 Aticles!? on here in one week). They are simply buying there products from companies that deliver.
I suspect the deal is as follows:
Microsoft pays company X a huge fee in some form, sometimes they call it an investment, sometimes, a joint marketing agreement, sometimes a manufacturing deal. It's called many things, but basically it's a big wad of cash handed from Microsoft to the company X.
In turn, the company X agrees to not make Android devices (I think Nokia signed that), or if it already does, to pay per unit license fees. Basically, the big bonus payment it gets from Microsoft gets smaller for every Android handset they sell vs a Microsoft one.
Of course that's illegal, they got into trouble with Netscape paying ISP to ship IE and drop Netscape Navigator. So here the back payment is dressed up as a patent license, and the forward payment dressed up as an investment in a new subsidiary or similar complicated way of giving the company money.
e.g. Microsoft makes $300 million investment in Barnes and Noble.
"It will come in the form of a new subsidiary of B&N that will include all of its Nook business as well as its educational College business. Microsoft is making a $300 million investment in the subsidiary, valuing the company at $1.7 billion in exchange for around 17.6 percent equity in the subsidiary."
See the B&N deal, basically B&N own that subsidiary, and can extract fees from it. So Microsoft can pretend it didn't give B&N money, and it can pretend it 'bought' a share in a subsidiary company. Anti-trust investigator would take years to unravel the paper trail for that one.
See the Nokia deal, Nokia kills its own phones, received billions from Microsoft and Nokia signs a license to WP7. Normally anti-trust alarm bells are ringing straight away, in effect Microsoft paid to kill a competitor and paid to put its own thing in place. But since Nokia would be the complainant in any anti-trust agreement and Elop is in place, there's no complaint to investigate.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9209259/Microsoft_to_pay_out_billions_as_part_of_Nokia_deal
All dodgy as f*** but structure in ways that are difficult for anti-trust investigators to unravel.
This is brilliant. Company that mainly makes Apple products will license "Android patents" from Microsoft. ... except it doesnt make any, it makes Apple devices.
Lets rephrase that. Microsoft hates Android, Apple hates Android, Apple tells its biggest client "go fetch". Foxconn does what its being told and promises to pay for something that doesnt exist and doesnt belong to a person it is giving money to. Whats more it will pay for every Android device it makes
Its an equivalent of Nokia licensing imaginary Android patents from Microsoft ... oh wait, Nokia DID license those too haha. Whats next? Dell licensing those patents? HP? Maybe Lexmark or Adobe? or Procter & Gamble?
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
Things must be worse at Microsoft than I thought. Trying to regain relevancy via the courtroom sounds desperate. That's just what Atari was doing right before they faded into the sunset.
Proverbs 21:19
At what point do the anti racketeering laws kick in. Sounds a lot like paying for "protection" to me.
Queue up the Godfather theme song.
Except this is just what happened in real life in a deal between IBM and SUN back in the 1980's
http://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html
here how it ended "An awkward silence ensued. The blue suits did not even confer among themselves. They just sat there, stonelike. Finally, the chief suit responded. "OK," he said, "maybe you don't infringe these seven patents. But we have 10,000 U.S. patents. Do you really want us to go back to Armonk [IBM headquarters in New York] and find seven patents you do infringe? Or do you want to make this easy and just pay us $20 million?" "
Interesting, but with some searching, Foxconn does actually make android/chrome devices:
Google Glass project said to be made by Foxconn in California
FoxConn Making An Amazon Phone For 2013
Acer Android phones...made by FoxConn
Granted, it seems to be a small percentage of what they do for Apple, it isn't exactly..."they don't make any"
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
...there is at least one primary manufacturer who won't play ball with Microsoft. From the article:
Koans and fables for the software engineer
I don't think you understand who Foxconn are. They do the actual manufacturing work for almost everyone in the tech business, from Apple and Motorola to Nintendo and Sony; the aforementioned "clients" they want to shield. In terms of who it affects, it's huge.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Foxconn isn't just an "Apple OEM", they make portable electronic devices for nearly everybody, including - yes - Android devices.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Therefore they cannot order the judge to change the order or sue for losses, since they haven't lost a thing.
Given that no one wants Windows 8 infecting their electronic devices, Microsoft is left with becoming a bully patent troll.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
It irritates me that Microsoft, having consistently failed to innovate a phone that anybody wanted to use, is now able to extract money out of other people's efforts. Its an innovation tax. Don't bother innovating, as failed innovators will help themselves to the profits of your innovation.
SURELY NOT!!!!!
whoosh?
If they are "natural ways" they are presumably "obvious". And hence unpatentable?
Or am I just not thinking as someone trying to extract money for doing nothing?
Foxcon legal department assessed the cost of litigation to fight against bogus patents potentially higher than just pay those damn mafioso.
That or they agreed to pay for patents in exchange for discounts elsewhere, making the patents appear to be more legit (or at least more widely accepted) but not really adding any cost.
Microsoft is well on its way to becoming SCO.
Death to software patents
Give me a break! What 'technologies' did the iPhone steal from WinCE. Apple managed to create a cell phone that people actually WANTED instead of a half-backed wannabe. To be fair, Android stole a lot more from the iPhone than it ever did from WinCE.
I was of the impression that ideas can not be patented and only actual innovations can be. So let us assume the idea was Microsoft's, do they collect for an idea or the implementation of the idea? what if some one uses a different process from them, can they still collect? Tab browsing is a Microsoft invention? I think I have too many questions and I doubt if any one here can really answer them so I'll more stop at this point. No maybe one thing, Is SUSE(which is owned by Microsoft) released under the GPL? and if it is, doesn't it mean that innovations can be cannibalized from SUSE based on the GPL? This action by Microsoft goes beyond this one act. It it the patent industry gone mad an in the process driving up prices for the consumer. Too many patents sit on paper preventing innovations and charging an arm and a leg when someone independently comes up with an idea that is close to the one that's on paper. these acts are leading to the slow death of imagination, free thinking and innovation. Personally, I think that patents should have a life expectancy and can only be renewed if the patent holder is actively developing and or using the patent as part of a legitimate commercial activity. in Microsoft's own case all windows OS up to Win XP would just about be fair game, or force them to keep the OSes relevant. (What a task that would be, imagine Microsoft running around trying to preventing MS clones)
If you want to do business in this neighborhood, a certain payment is required for protection. Protection from whom? Me.
Foxconn isn't just an "Apple OEM", they make portable electronic devices for nearly everybody, including - yes - Android devices.
Foxconn isn't an Apple OEM at all. They would be an Apple OEM if you could buy Foxconn labeled computers or phones or tablets that are identical to or very similar to Apple products. Foxconn is a manufacturer building products _for Apple_ (among many others), that's the complete opposite of an OEM.
Lexmark along with Kyocera, buffalo, a-data, and others already paid Microsoft for NON-ANDROID Linux related patents. If people think this is about Android think again. Its about Linux and Android is just one implementation. many non-android manufactures have been caught in this extortion scheme just because they use Linux. Microsoft despicable scheme is against open source and they have said as much that they were going to use patents to kill Linux this is their plan at play.
You get to fight for the unprofitable scraps Samsung leaves behind and have to go out of your way to try and stand out. Your users are probably tight wads and Microsoft is bound to bully you into giving them money. I think I'd rather start from scratch and develop my own OS.
You cast the result to a Boolean you imbecile!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Sorry if my comment is so crude, but my keyboard is covered in ASCII... Get it ASCII.....
Mu ha ha ha...
Here is it, thanks to Barns & Nobles:
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/105113-microsofts-android-bullying-revealed-by-barnes-noble
More details
http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=2011111122291296
TLDR:
1) Background image loading
2) Operating system provided tabs.
3) Handles when selecting text.
4) Annotation of electronic documents. (annotating them without changing the original document)
5) Web browser loading status icons.
6) Simulating mouse inputs using non-mouse devices. (basically everything with a touchscreen infridges)
So that will add yet another cost to the cheap devices ( tablets, phones, camera, tv streamers, etc ) coming out of china.
F-U Microsoft. And the horse you came in on.
Between Win8 not catching any traction and declining PC sales, is MS destined to be the nothing more than a high profile patent troll? Are they already there?
Foxconn just got mugged.