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Microsoft Earns $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties?

businessinsider.com

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Re: Microsoft Earns $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties?

#41

Post by gibwell »

mtgx wrote: post #10

How can a company so shamelessly extract money (through forceful deals, no doubt) from an open source OS, and get away with it? Linux companies dodged this bullet for the most part, from both Microsoft and SCU, but it seems Microsoft "succeeded" this time against Android with their mostly garbage patents in the same way patent trolls and mass-bittorrent lawsuits have succeeded so far - by scaring people/companies int…

Only parts of Android are open source, and in any case it's a fundamentally commercial project conducted by giant corporations.

What about it being partly open source has any bearing on the patent issue?

(I'm not defending Microsoft here - just saying that Android being partly open doesn't seem to be relevant to the battle between Microsoft and Google)

Re: Microsoft Earns $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties?

#42

Post by seanmcdirmid »

sleepydog wrote: post #23
mtgx wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Microsoft has ever made a profit on Xbox, although I'm sure they've split up and distributed its losses to all sorts of divisions to hide that. They're about to do the same with Bing, too, now.

Are you sure? I remember reading that they make a ton of money on Xbox Live subscriptions.

I believe the claim goes that investment is still greater than money earned on the xbox ecosystem. It sounds plausible, but I don't know if it's true.

Re: Microsoft Earns $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties?

#43

Post by eyesee »

tsycho wrote: post #5

If these numbers are accurate, then yuck!!! My disgust for software patents just went up even further. More seriously, I have a question for those who know more about this... 1. Are these generic, broad "idea" patents and hence there is nothing Google/OEMs can really do here to avoid licensing them? If not, why don't they use an alternative implementation to avoid the conflict? 2. If the answer to #1 is yes, how does…

Apple and Microsoft have in place a broad patent cross licensing agreement since 1997[1] in the settlement of the QuickTime lawsuit against Microsoft.

[1] http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/13/3239977/apple-and-microsof...

Re: Microsoft Earns $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties?

#44

Post by corresation »

...claims analyst, with absolutely nothing backing up their claim. The headline appears as if Microsoft accountants stated this as a fact, when in reality this is someone essentially reading tea leaves.

Further it's worth noting that the division that these Android royalties are attributed to also garners all other patent licensing royalties of any sort (e.g. FAT), as well as licensing charges such as ActiveSync licensing (ergo, every iPhone, among others).

Re: Microsoft Earns $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties?

#45

Post by objclxt »

sker wrote: post #40

I always thought HTC and Samsung were exempt from these royalties by releasing their own Windows Phones. That's why Samsung doesn't care at all about their WP offerings. Samsung, HTC, Apple and Nokia should account for over 50% of the global market. If my assumptions are correct, are the rest of the smaller players able to pay that much money on royalties alone? I'll like to see some numbers. The article is seriously…

> I always thought HTC and Samsung were exempt from these royalties by releasing their own Windows Phones

Samsung definitely pay a per-device royalty to Microsoft for Android devices, the latter even put a press release out about it a few years ago:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2011/sep11/09-28sa...

Re: Microsoft Earns $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties?

#46

Post by padobson »

I'm not surprised the XBox division is bleeding so much cash. Microsoft should never have gotten into the hardware business in the first place. Every time they release a new piece of hardware is cause for a face-palm.

15 years ago, when no console maker had a viable strategy for going online, MS should have built a cross platform solution that made online gaming possible for every console. Does that sound familiar? A cross-platform solution for a number of competing hardware makers?

This division would probably be a huge part of Microsoft's business if they had pulled it off. Just think of the leveraging possibilities if every gamer over the age of 25 had an XBox live account, instead of the much smaller subset of gamers over 25 who also owned a Microsoft console.

I think they're back on the right track with Windows phone, but Google already beat them to the cross-platform solution.

Re: Microsoft Earns $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties?

#48

Post by tzs »

shmerl wrote: post #34
tsycho wrote: post #5

If these numbers are accurate, then yuck!!! My disgust for software patents just went up even further. More seriously, I have a question for those who know more about this... 1. Are these generic, broad "idea" patents and hence there is nothing Google/OEMs can really do here to avoid licensing them? If not, why don't they use an alternative implementation to avoid the conflict? 2. If the answer to #1 is yes, how does…

MS attempts to do everything possible to hide what patents they use for protection racket. Most probably because those patents are garbage and can be otherwise invalidated. Barnes and Noble almost got to that point, but MS quickly bribed them to prevent that from happening. Unfortunately, besides B&N no one had the guts to fight these racketeers.

You are a bit confused. When Microsoft sued Barnes and Noble, the patents they were suing over were disclosed in their public court filings. Over a dozen were identified [1].

[1] http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/070611-microsoft-andro...

Re: Microsoft Earns $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties?

#50

Post by iamshs »

corresation wrote: post #44

...claims analyst, with absolutely nothing backing up their claim. The headline appears as if Microsoft accountants stated this as a fact, when in reality this is someone essentially reading tea leaves. Further it's worth noting that the division that these Android royalties are attributed to also garners all other patent licensing royalties of any sort (e.g. FAT), as well as licensing charges such as ActiveSync lice…

Exactly. Rick Sherlund has a history of saying that Microsoft should be divided up, and Xbox should definitely be spun off [1, 2, 3]. He even said Samsung should take over Xbox division [4].

Even if MS earns $1 Billion from patents that exclude "legitimate" licensing, I think that would be a big number and definitely should be looked into.

[1] - http://www.geekwire.com/2013/sherlund-microsoft-should-consi...

[2] - http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/03/technology/enterprise/micros...

[3] - http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-06-03-microsoft-w...

[4] - http://www.examiner.com/article/sherlund-microsoft-needs-to-...

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