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Nokia to get 'huge' payments from Microsoft

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Nokia to get 'huge' payments from Microsoft

#3
It's still not clear how these payments are structured.

If Nokia gets paid for sales of all manufacturers' handsets (perhaps as royalties for the Nokia mapping software), that explains why Elop says that Nokia has a stake in the success of the platform as a whole.

But it's hard to imagine HTC or Samsung being thrilled for Nokia to get money for sales of their handsets...

Re: Nokia to get 'huge' payments from Microsoft

#5
post #3

It's still not clear how these payments are structured. If Nokia gets paid for sales of all manufacturers' handsets (perhaps as royalties for the Nokia mapping software), that explains why Elop says that Nokia has a stake in the success of the platform as a whole. But it's hard to imagine HTC or Samsung being thrilled for Nokia to get money for sales of their handsets...

From a strategic standpoint I think HTC and Samsung will be in favor of this deal. Nokia still has dominance in a lot of places around the world. This deal locks Nokia into WP7 and with that being true other manufacturers can enter Nokia dominant markets as the only Android alternatives.

Given these are companies that have bet their business on Android I suspect they think it's superior and welcome a chance to neutralize Nokia.

So while this deal with Microsoft may give Nokia a little of the other carriers money I'd think it will be well worth it .

Re: Nokia to get 'huge' payments from Microsoft

#7
post #2

Wait a second... so Microsoft is paying Nokia to use their software? Is "inverse licensing" a viable strategy now?

Not sure if it is viable, but Google has been doing it for some time with Android. The open-source version is free, and if the manufacturer includes the various Google Apps on top, they get a cut of the ads revenue.

Re: Nokia to get 'huge' payments from Microsoft

#9
post #2

Wait a second... so Microsoft is paying Nokia to use their software? Is "inverse licensing" a viable strategy now?

Not for a startup of course, but Microsoft sees this as an investment in business development. MS wants Windows to be a solid mobile platform, and they're pouring a bunch of money into the Nokia deal to increase the availability of Windows Phone 7 handsets. It's the chicken-and-egg problem that effects so many things; a platform can't be successful without software to run on top of it, but no one will develop software for a platform that isn't successful. This problem is much less hard when you have a ton of money and can just pay people to use your platform, which is what MS is doing here.

It's not much different than pouring a bunch of money into advertising; if you have a big partner like Nokia, it not only generates a lot of PR buzz, but it also means that since Nokia makes a lot of phones, there will be a lot of WP7 phones out soon, which is what Microsoft wants.

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