4 ms·
HTC pays Microsoft $5 for each Android phone it sells
- rbanffy 15y agoPatent extortion is a valid business model.
- lhnz 15y agoProbably dependent on whether you have enough money to scare people from getting into a legal battle with you.
- rbanffy 15y agoIt's not that difficult to finance a small war like this. You start settling for little money and use this money to fight the next target and go, from target to target. It's little comfort for Android developers that Lodsys uses money it got from Apple to threaten them.
- Yhippa 15y agoI agree. Do you think that there was once a time in place for patents or that we still need them? The concept of "owning" ideas is really weird to me.
- rbanffy 15y agoI am not completely against patents. Not even software patents, as a principle. What I am against is bad patents - patents on obvious ideas or ideas anyone could come up with in a couple minutes. Patents should be hard to earn.
- garyrichardson 15y agoSo do they make more on HTC Android phones or Nokia Windows Phones?
- stuartjmoore 15y agoThe math says more on Android than Windows Phone 7: http://www.asymco.com/2011/05/27/microsoft-has-received-five-times-more-income-from-android-than-from-windows-phone/ http://www.asymco.com/2011/05/27/microsoft-has-received-five...
- metamatt 15y agoWho knows how much they will make on Nokia Windows phones, but right now they're making $0 from them since there aren't any yet.
- martingordon 15y agoNot only does Microsoft make more on Android than Windows Phone, they probably make more per Android phone than Google does.
- zandorg 15y agoMy guess is the patent on the FAT file system.
- rbanffy 15y agoHow hard would it be to make an ext4 filesystem driver for Windows? Would licensing allow that?
- mvalle 15y agoI have long believed that the FSF or SFLC should provide free or lowcost insurance against patent lawsuits where free software is involved. That way companies, like HTC, could more comfortably, and with less associated risk, deny paying for these kinds of patent rackets. The FSF and SFLC would have the expsrtise of fighting the case, and would probably get the resources to do it too.