Microsoft Dumping License Fees For Windows Phone?

Nerval's Lobster writes "For years, Microsoft remained adamant about its licensing fees for Windows Phone: if a smartphone manufacturer wanted to include the software on its devices, it would need to pay Microsoft a certain amount per unit. That was a logical strategy for Microsoft, which became a very big company thanks to licensing fees for Windows and other platforms. Unlike some of those other products, however, Windows Phone has struggled for adoption in its marketplace, which is dominated by Apple and Google. In response, suggests the Times of India, Microsoft may have dumped licensing fees for two Indian smartphone makers, Karbonn and Lava (Xolo). Microsoft's biggest rival, Google, gives its Android mobile operating system away for free, a maneuver that helped it gain spectacular market-share in a relatively short amount of time. If Microsoft pursues a similar strategy in different markets, it could encourage more smartphone manufacturers to produce Windows Phone devices, which could increase the platform's market-share—but there are no guarantees that scenario will actually play out. The smartphone market is increasingly saturated, and Microsoft's opponents have no intention of allowing Windows Phone to gain any ground."

Comments

Re:How to Falsify Evolution

[Anonymous Coward]

Any theory that does not provide a method to falsify and validate its claims is a useless theory.

See also: The entire bible.

gets paid for android

[fermion]

Android right now has up to 80% of the world marketshare. MS has 5%. The number of phones MS sells is insignificant. They could afford to give them away for free if they wanted to build marketshare. It probably costs more to manage the Licensing program that the program collects in fees. At this point, the fees is purely a philosophical endeavor for MS. Cutting them to build market share makes sense, but it probably is not going to encourage others to start making MS phones. Nothing they have done in the past has worked.

In any case, remember that Samsung, which is what most people buy when they buy an android phone, pays MS $10-20 per phone. This is clearly where MS future lies, collecting patent fees. The only reason that it needs to have a phone is so it is not labeled as patent troll.

Re:How to Falsify Evolution

[Amtrak]

I didn't read all of your rant... because well it's long and i'm a slashdot user. But your argument about a watermelon being blue on the inside but turning red when cut open intrigues me. I think that it might be postulated that if a watermelon changes color when cut it must be because of some chemical reaction. Given this why not just put the watermelon in an air tight chamber filled with a noble gas and then cut it open from the inside. This should allow said watermelon hypothesis to be tested. An un-testable hypothesis isn't one at all. A hard to test hypothesis is just a challenge.

Re:Does this mean

[turgid]

No, it means Microsoft shareholders should buy some Google stock...

But Microsoft collect a "license fee" from all the major Android phone vendors for "patents" used in the Linux kernel.

I wonder what the various national courts around the world will make of this... giving your own OS away for free while running an extortion racket for protection money from your competitors?