9 ms·

Microsoft paid Nokia $250m for Windows Phone use

69 points by hencq 15y ago

cooldeal 15y ago
Old news? http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-03-07/microsoft-is-said-to-pay-nokia-more-than-1-billion-in-deal.html http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-03-07/microsoft-is-sai... Also, it's 250M/quarter. The real news is that Nokia sold over a million Lumia phones over 2 months of launch in Europe and is launching the Lumia 900 in March on AT&T for $99 on contract. http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/01/26/nokia-rallies-on-q4-results-lumia-unit-sales-top-1-million/?partner=yahootix http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/01/26/nokia-rall... http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2012/01/26/microsoft-ready-to-wage-war-against-apple-google-with-nokia-lumia/?partner=yahootix http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2012/01/26/mic...
- dpark 15y ago
  > lauching the Lumia 900 in March on AT&T for $99 on contract. That's not "the real news". It's speculation. You even pulled it from a blog titled Great Speculations.
  - cooldeal 15y ago
    News in the sense, something new to report on. Anyway, two reliable sources say March 18th. BGR and Winsupersite. Looks like Winsupersite is banned on HN (too many fanboy flaggers?) http://www.bgr.com/2012/01/25/atts-q1-2012-roadmap-nokia-lumia-900-to-launch-march-18th-for-99-99/ http://www.bgr.com/2012/01/25/atts-q1-2012-roadmap-nokia-lum... http://www.winsupersite.com/article/paul-thurrotts-wininfo/exclusive-microsoft-nokias-plans-marketing-windows-phone-2012-141784 http://www.winsupersite.com/article/paul-thurrotts-wininfo/e...
    - raganwald 15y ago
      Speaking of speculation, you have ZERO backing for your conjectures about why posts from Winsupersite get buried or simply don't make the front page. Furthermore, insulting your fellow users by calling them "fanboys" is not in the best traditions of Hacker News. Update: The problem here is that we have anonymous/opaque voting, moderation, and flagging. Without showing me a collection of stories that received massive upvotes but never made the front page, we have no evidence of moderation or flagging, just evidence that your interests are in the minority. If we did have such evidence, all we could say is that moderators had decided that such articles do not belong here, or that users felt they did not belong here, but we can't distinguish between the cases. Without being able to establish that there are users who consistently flag such articles, you have no argument. If we did have some way of identifying which users were flagging such articles, how would you propose to back up a claim that they are "fanboys?" Do you have a definition for this term other than "Disagree with you?" Without a lot more evidence, I simply can't take your speculative aside as more than a broadly aimed piece of abuse directed at people who don't share your enthusiasms.
      - cooldeal 15y ago
        >Speaking of speculation, you have ZERO backing for your conjectures about why posts from Winsupersite get buried or simply don't make the front page Try submitting a story from Winsupersite, it will be instantly dead. That either means it was heavily flagged in the past that the system auto-kills any submission from it, or it was singled out by a moderator. >Update: The problem here is that we have anonymous/opaque voting, moderation, and flagging. Without showing me a collection of stories that received massive upvotes but never made the front page, we have no evidence of moderation or flagging, just evidence that your interests are in the minority. Eg. see this post complaining but no action was taken. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3408883 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3408883 I am not even complaining that the stories are not voted up, it is that they're completely banned. If it was Daring Fireball(Winsupersite is basically the Microsoft equivalent of that) that was banned, HN would go completely ballistic. Not to mention that fact that Gruber's deprecating and sometimes misinformed takes on important Microsoft announcements get more traction here than the actual news itself. Do you really see anything on that site which makes any submission to it instantly dead other than that it's Microsoft-centric reporting which seems to be its only sin?
    - dpark 15y ago
      It's not the AT&T angle that I was commenting on, but the $99. (Although I'm not sure about the date, either.) Anything reported as coming from "a portion of AT&T’s 2012 roadmap from a trusted source" is pretty much speculation, because even if the information is legitimate, it could easily change up until the moment it's made public.
- shareme 15y ago
  Nope, when someone states an activation number than its believable..the number is far less than 1 million..in fact some are classifying it as only 300,000 sold.
justincormack 15y ago
It is not clear if they expect the platform support pyments to be larger or smaller than the software royalty agreement, ie whether they are paying Microsoft in the long run or vice versa. I guess it may depend on sales to some extent, although it ways there is also a minimum royalty.
- hencq 15y ago
  Eventually yes I guess, but I think it might be a while before Nokia end up paying Microsoft (in net terms anyway). Microsoft are probably more interested in gaining market share at this point, so I wouldn't be surprised if there's more money flowing Nokia's way in the coming quarters.
  - brudgers 15y ago
    Keep in mind that Nokia's advertising is featuring WP7, and Microsoft is benefiting from that.
thinkling 15y ago
Back in 1997, Microsoft invested $150m in Apple along with a release of Office for the Mac. That worked out pretty well. Now after a bit of inflation, it's $250m and a release of Windows Phone.
- badclient 15y ago
  Sarcasm? That worked out pretty well. If not snark, I must disagree. It was a very poor competitive investment which is only justifiable if the gov "cornered" MS into making it over anti-trust.
  - justincormack 15y ago
    It would have been an excellent investment if Microsoft had only kept the shares...
    - badclient 15y ago
      Seeing Apple dead would be the best case for Microsoft. The investment accomplished the opposite.
      - rbanffy 15y ago
        Quite simply, no. Without Apple, Microsoft would have an unquestionable monopoly over personal computer operating systems it was (and is) actively leveraging to gain competitive advantages in application software. That would create lots of restrictions Microsoft wasn't comfortable with. The best scenario would be a niche-player Apple. In personal computers, it still is, but the "post-PC" products it introduced have a good potential of turning Microsoft into a niche-player as PCs go the way of the dodo.
        groggles 15y ago
        That would create lots of restrictions Microsoft wasn't comfortable with The most likely scenario was that Microsoft would have been broken up, which while it was unwanted by Gates would have likely led to a much more valuable set of combined parts today. Microsoft was the #1 software engineering powerhouse, but they always managed to sabotage their own efforts (force integration where it was detrimental, alignment to a core strategy that often meant that they saw themselves as their biggest competitor, etc). If Microsoft didn't help Apple, and Apple hypothetically disappeared, today we would likely have a lot more mini-Microsofts in our lives.
nantes 15y ago
So, I have to wonder, does this mean Microsoft makes more from Android royalties than Windows Phone royalties?
- groggles 15y ago
  Probably, given that Microsoft has never made money on Windows Mobile -- minuscule licensing costs coupled with a high engineering price. In their brightest expectations I don't think they see themselves making money with it. Microsoft's mobile efforts have always been about the ecosystem. Office, Exchange, Windows security technologies, and now the xbox platform (though I still marvel that having your xbox achievements available for perusal was thought to be a big feature of WP7). Given that approach, Android can serve that purpose even without royalties.
  - technoslut 15y ago
    >In their brightest expectations I don't think they see themselves making money with it. If MS defeated Android there is no question that they would raise the price of the licensing fee. Since they won't MS is faced with the reality that, while they are making money now, these patents won't last forever.
brudgers 15y ago
$250 million for a long term hardware partner is not much compared with the $12.5 billion Google is spending to acquire Motorola Mobiity in order to have one...and Google doesn't even get royalties back to cover part of the costs. Indeed, considering the very real possibility of patent licensing fees, Microsoft may even get a slice of every hand set Google sells. On the other hand, considering that Nokia is and will continue to feature Windows Phone in their advertising, Microsoft is likely to further benefit from the expenditure.
- TylerE 15y ago
  It was my understanding that the Motorola purchase was solely about acquiring patents, and did NOT include the hardware side of the business at all.
  - nkassis 15y ago
    No I believe the hardware side of the mobile division is included. But that was just a bonus (or a curse?) for Google who, as you said, just really wanted the patent.
    - technoslut 15y ago
      I'm not so sure anymore that was Google's only intent. Google may be later be forced to become an OEM. As of today, it's quite a reality that Samsung (who sells 55% of all Android smartphones), Amazon, Facebook and Baidu won't completely fork Android in their own best interest. It may behoove Google to develop a Nexus line that covers a wide range of prices.
  - randall 15y ago
    To the contrary. The purchase included all of Moto Mobility, which is the STB / Phone side of Moto, and must also include patents. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Mobility http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Mobility
  - brudgers 15y ago
    Motorola Mobility still makes devices, e.g. Droid. Third quarter numbers: http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ABEA-58XVPR/1656793431x0x511748/5b96715a-1ebc-4c1b-a64c-1a6ecf502728/Q3_2011_Financial_Tables..pdf http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ABEA-58XVPR/165679343...
rbanffy 15y ago
If Microsoft pays Nokia a fixed amount for using the OS on a certain number of models while Nokia pays Microsoft a variable amount proportional to phones sold, it's very easy to see Nokia's best possible scenario is to sell just enough phones to cover the production costs while keeping as much of Microsoft's money as possible. RIght now, the odds of outselling Android and iPhones are very slim. Considering sales volume, I'd say Nokia is right on target. Elop may prove himself a genius, after all.
- bwarp 15y ago
  Sounds feasable. It's not like they're not selling any Series 40 phones [1] .... [1] http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/25/nokia-s40-sales-reach-1-5-billion/ http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/25/nokia-s40-sales-reach-1-5...
- brudgers 15y ago
  Long term, the odds of WP7 outselling both are better than slim because Microsoft was thinking about the low end market when they designed WP7. There are two standard screen sizes, 800 x 480 and 400 x 480 which is well suited for cheaper commodity devices. Nokia sold 93 million commodity devices last quarter (that's about half the number of iPhones ever sold). The market is huge and neither Android or iOS is likely to go there. Android won't because the development costs of adapting the OS to small low margin commodity devices would be borne by the manufacturers and carriers, and iOS won't because of Apple's branding strategy. Nokia recognized that its core competency was manufacturing and hardware design, not user interfaces and software development. Considering that they were probably better at both than any other handset manufacturer, it is probable that other handset manufacturers will follow course, should Nokia see even moderate success with their strategy. [edit] Nokia has sold 1.5 billion S40 devices. WP7 is what will replace them.
  - ZeroGravitas 15y ago
    Android is already on the low end commodity devices. And those manufacturers and carriers (i.e. prepay or non-US) don't seem that fussed about adapting Android, they just use stock. So it's only really the chip suppliers who need to get Android working. And here's a good example of that: http://armdevices.net/2012/01/19/rockchip-rk2918-ice-cream-sandwich-smartphone/ http://armdevices.net/2012/01/19/rockchip-rk2918-ice-cream-s... MediaTek, who Elop cited as eating Nokia's low-end market by suppling chips to no-name brands in his "burning platform" memo also have been working on Android for a while and have partnered with Google to make GoogleTV (i.e. Android) chipsets too.
vsl2 15y ago
Don't see how a measly (relatively speaking for these giant companies) $250M should have been a major factor for Nokia to choose to focus on Windows Phones rather than Android. Apple and Google are dominating the smartphone OS market and I don't see how two slow-moving companies will make a serious dent in the consumer market. How many people wold would give up their iPhone for a Windows phone, especially as an early adopter? I'd be very surprised if any Windows Phone gains serious traction with consumers. The best shot I see for Windows Phone success would be in the enterprise market where easy/free compatibility with MS Office products and other MS products used at work could be a large benefit. But Apple is making headway here as well so it could all be for naught.
- akmiller 15y ago
  I gave up my iPhone for a Windows phone and I haven't looked back! However, I don't use any other Microsoft products at all.
  - stumm 15y ago
    Out of curiosity what device did you get? And what was your reason for switching?
    - akmiller 15y ago
      I ended up getting the Samsung Focus S. I was convinced I was switching to Android and going to get the Galaxy Nexus after owning every iPhone since the 3G. However, after looking at several different phones I found the Mango UI to be the most innovative take on interfaces. I actually feel that as far as the core interface goes both Mango and Android have pulled far ahead of iOS.
- guelo 15y ago
  Microsoft is gigantic, rich and relentless, they do not give up. Look at the amounts of cash they've been burning on Bing for years patiently waiting for their opening. You should not never count them out.
sylvinus 15y ago
Note that $250m just seems to be the quarterly fee...

69 points by hencq 15y ago

Old news? http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-03-07/microsoft-is-said-to-pay-nokia-more-than-1-billion-in-deal.html http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-03-07/microsoft-is-sai... Also, it's 250M/quarter. The real news is that Nokia sold over a million Lumia phones over 2 months of launch in Europe and is launching the Lumia 900 in March on AT&T for $99 on contract. http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/01/26/nokia-rallies-on-q4-results-lumia-unit-sales-top-1-million/?partner=yahootix http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/01/26/nokia-rall... http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2012/01/26/microsoft-ready-to-wage-war-against-apple-google-with-nokia-lumia/?partner=yahootix http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2012/01/26/mic...

dpark 15y ago
> lauching the Lumia 900 in March on AT&T for $99 on contract. That's not "the real news". It's speculation. You even pulled it from a blog titled Great Speculations.
- cooldeal 15y ago
  News in the sense, something new to report on. Anyway, two reliable sources say March 18th. BGR and Winsupersite. Looks like Winsupersite is banned on HN (too many fanboy flaggers?) http://www.bgr.com/2012/01/25/atts-q1-2012-roadmap-nokia-lumia-900-to-launch-march-18th-for-99-99/ http://www.bgr.com/2012/01/25/atts-q1-2012-roadmap-nokia-lum... http://www.winsupersite.com/article/paul-thurrotts-wininfo/exclusive-microsoft-nokias-plans-marketing-windows-phone-2012-141784 http://www.winsupersite.com/article/paul-thurrotts-wininfo/e...
  - raganwald 15y ago
    Speaking of speculation, you have ZERO backing for your conjectures about why posts from Winsupersite get buried or simply don't make the front page. Furthermore, insulting your fellow users by calling them "fanboys" is not in the best traditions of Hacker News. Update: The problem here is that we have anonymous/opaque voting, moderation, and flagging. Without showing me a collection of stories that received massive upvotes but never made the front page, we have no evidence of moderation or flagging, just evidence that your interests are in the minority. If we did have such evidence, all we could say is that moderators had decided that such articles do not belong here, or that users felt they did not belong here, but we can't distinguish between the cases. Without being able to establish that there are users who consistently flag such articles, you have no argument. If we did have some way of identifying which users were flagging such articles, how would you propose to back up a claim that they are "fanboys?" Do you have a definition for this term other than "Disagree with you?" Without a lot more evidence, I simply can't take your speculative aside as more than a broadly aimed piece of abuse directed at people who don't share your enthusiasms.
    - cooldeal 15y ago
      >Speaking of speculation, you have ZERO backing for your conjectures about why posts from Winsupersite get buried or simply don't make the front page Try submitting a story from Winsupersite, it will be instantly dead. That either means it was heavily flagged in the past that the system auto-kills any submission from it, or it was singled out by a moderator. >Update: The problem here is that we have anonymous/opaque voting, moderation, and flagging. Without showing me a collection of stories that received massive upvotes but never made the front page, we have no evidence of moderation or flagging, just evidence that your interests are in the minority. Eg. see this post complaining but no action was taken. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3408883 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3408883 I am not even complaining that the stories are not voted up, it is that they're completely banned. If it was Daring Fireball(Winsupersite is basically the Microsoft equivalent of that) that was banned, HN would go completely ballistic. Not to mention that fact that Gruber's deprecating and sometimes misinformed takes on important Microsoft announcements get more traction here than the actual news itself. Do you really see anything on that site which makes any submission to it instantly dead other than that it's Microsoft-centric reporting which seems to be its only sin?
  - dpark 15y ago
    It's not the AT&T angle that I was commenting on, but the $99. (Although I'm not sure about the date, either.) Anything reported as coming from "a portion of AT&T’s 2012 roadmap from a trusted source" is pretty much speculation, because even if the information is legitimate, it could easily change up until the moment it's made public.
shareme 15y ago
Nope, when someone states an activation number than its believable..the number is far less than 1 million..in fact some are classifying it as only 300,000 sold.

justincormack 15y ago

It is not clear if they expect the platform support pyments to be larger or smaller than the software royalty agreement, ie whether they are paying Microsoft in the long run or vice versa. I guess it may depend on sales to some extent, although it ways there is also a minimum royalty.

hencq 15y ago
Eventually yes I guess, but I think it might be a while before Nokia end up paying Microsoft (in net terms anyway). Microsoft are probably more interested in gaining market share at this point, so I wouldn't be surprised if there's more money flowing Nokia's way in the coming quarters.
- brudgers 15y ago
  Keep in mind that Nokia's advertising is featuring WP7, and Microsoft is benefiting from that.

thinkling 15y ago

Back in 1997, Microsoft invested $150m in Apple along with a release of Office for the Mac. That worked out pretty well. Now after a bit of inflation, it's $250m and a release of Windows Phone.

badclient 15y ago
Sarcasm? That worked out pretty well. If not snark, I must disagree. It was a very poor competitive investment which is only justifiable if the gov "cornered" MS into making it over anti-trust.
- justincormack 15y ago
  It would have been an excellent investment if Microsoft had only kept the shares...
  - badclient 15y ago
    Seeing Apple dead would be the best case for Microsoft. The investment accomplished the opposite.
    - rbanffy 15y ago
      Quite simply, no. Without Apple, Microsoft would have an unquestionable monopoly over personal computer operating systems it was (and is) actively leveraging to gain competitive advantages in application software. That would create lots of restrictions Microsoft wasn't comfortable with. The best scenario would be a niche-player Apple. In personal computers, it still is, but the "post-PC" products it introduced have a good potential of turning Microsoft into a niche-player as PCs go the way of the dodo.
      - groggles 15y ago
        That would create lots of restrictions Microsoft wasn't comfortable with The most likely scenario was that Microsoft would have been broken up, which while it was unwanted by Gates would have likely led to a much more valuable set of combined parts today. Microsoft was the #1 software engineering powerhouse, but they always managed to sabotage their own efforts (force integration where it was detrimental, alignment to a core strategy that often meant that they saw themselves as their biggest competitor, etc). If Microsoft didn't help Apple, and Apple hypothetically disappeared, today we would likely have a lot more mini-Microsofts in our lives.

nantes 15y ago

So, I have to wonder, does this mean Microsoft makes more from Android royalties than Windows Phone royalties?

groggles 15y ago
Probably, given that Microsoft has never made money on Windows Mobile -- minuscule licensing costs coupled with a high engineering price. In their brightest expectations I don't think they see themselves making money with it. Microsoft's mobile efforts have always been about the ecosystem. Office, Exchange, Windows security technologies, and now the xbox platform (though I still marvel that having your xbox achievements available for perusal was thought to be a big feature of WP7). Given that approach, Android can serve that purpose even without royalties.
- technoslut 15y ago
  >In their brightest expectations I don't think they see themselves making money with it. If MS defeated Android there is no question that they would raise the price of the licensing fee. Since they won't MS is faced with the reality that, while they are making money now, these patents won't last forever.

brudgers 15y ago

$250 million for a long term hardware partner is not much compared with the $12.5 billion Google is spending to acquire Motorola Mobiity in order to have one...and Google doesn't even get royalties back to cover part of the costs. Indeed, considering the very real possibility of patent licensing fees, Microsoft may even get a slice of every hand set Google sells. On the other hand, considering that Nokia is and will continue to feature Windows Phone in their advertising, Microsoft is likely to further benefit from the expenditure.

TylerE 15y ago
It was my understanding that the Motorola purchase was solely about acquiring patents, and did NOT include the hardware side of the business at all.
- nkassis 15y ago
  No I believe the hardware side of the mobile division is included. But that was just a bonus (or a curse?) for Google who, as you said, just really wanted the patent.
  - technoslut 15y ago
    I'm not so sure anymore that was Google's only intent. Google may be later be forced to become an OEM. As of today, it's quite a reality that Samsung (who sells 55% of all Android smartphones), Amazon, Facebook and Baidu won't completely fork Android in their own best interest. It may behoove Google to develop a Nexus line that covers a wide range of prices.
- randall 15y ago
  To the contrary. The purchase included all of Moto Mobility, which is the STB / Phone side of Moto, and must also include patents. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Mobility http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Mobility
- brudgers 15y ago
  Motorola Mobility still makes devices, e.g. Droid. Third quarter numbers: http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ABEA-58XVPR/1656793431x0x511748/5b96715a-1ebc-4c1b-a64c-1a6ecf502728/Q3_2011_Financial_Tables..pdf http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ABEA-58XVPR/165679343...

rbanffy 15y ago

If Microsoft pays Nokia a fixed amount for using the OS on a certain number of models while Nokia pays Microsoft a variable amount proportional to phones sold, it's very easy to see Nokia's best possible scenario is to sell just enough phones to cover the production costs while keeping as much of Microsoft's money as possible. RIght now, the odds of outselling Android and iPhones are very slim. Considering sales volume, I'd say Nokia is right on target. Elop may prove himself a genius, after all.

bwarp 15y ago
Sounds feasable. It's not like they're not selling any Series 40 phones [1] .... [1] http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/25/nokia-s40-sales-reach-1-5-billion/ http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/25/nokia-s40-sales-reach-1-5...
brudgers 15y ago
Long term, the odds of WP7 outselling both are better than slim because Microsoft was thinking about the low end market when they designed WP7. There are two standard screen sizes, 800 x 480 and 400 x 480 which is well suited for cheaper commodity devices. Nokia sold 93 million commodity devices last quarter (that's about half the number of iPhones ever sold). The market is huge and neither Android or iOS is likely to go there. Android won't because the development costs of adapting the OS to small low margin commodity devices would be borne by the manufacturers and carriers, and iOS won't because of Apple's branding strategy. Nokia recognized that its core competency was manufacturing and hardware design, not user interfaces and software development. Considering that they were probably better at both than any other handset manufacturer, it is probable that other handset manufacturers will follow course, should Nokia see even moderate success with their strategy. [edit] Nokia has sold 1.5 billion S40 devices. WP7 is what will replace them.
- ZeroGravitas 15y ago
  Android is already on the low end commodity devices. And those manufacturers and carriers (i.e. prepay or non-US) don't seem that fussed about adapting Android, they just use stock. So it's only really the chip suppliers who need to get Android working. And here's a good example of that: http://armdevices.net/2012/01/19/rockchip-rk2918-ice-cream-sandwich-smartphone/ http://armdevices.net/2012/01/19/rockchip-rk2918-ice-cream-s... MediaTek, who Elop cited as eating Nokia's low-end market by suppling chips to no-name brands in his "burning platform" memo also have been working on Android for a while and have partnered with Google to make GoogleTV (i.e. Android) chipsets too.

vsl2 15y ago

Don't see how a measly (relatively speaking for these giant companies) $250M should have been a major factor for Nokia to choose to focus on Windows Phones rather than Android. Apple and Google are dominating the smartphone OS market and I don't see how two slow-moving companies will make a serious dent in the consumer market. How many people wold would give up their iPhone for a Windows phone, especially as an early adopter? I'd be very surprised if any Windows Phone gains serious traction with consumers. The best shot I see for Windows Phone success would be in the enterprise market where easy/free compatibility with MS Office products and other MS products used at work could be a large benefit. But Apple is making headway here as well so it could all be for naught.

akmiller 15y ago
I gave up my iPhone for a Windows phone and I haven't looked back! However, I don't use any other Microsoft products at all.
- stumm 15y ago
  Out of curiosity what device did you get? And what was your reason for switching?
  - akmiller 15y ago
    I ended up getting the Samsung Focus S. I was convinced I was switching to Android and going to get the Galaxy Nexus after owning every iPhone since the 3G. However, after looking at several different phones I found the Mango UI to be the most innovative take on interfaces. I actually feel that as far as the core interface goes both Mango and Android have pulled far ahead of iOS.
guelo 15y ago
Microsoft is gigantic, rich and relentless, they do not give up. Look at the amounts of cash they've been burning on Bing for years patiently waiting for their opening. You should not never count them out.

sylvinus 15y ago

Note that $250m just seems to be the quarterly fee...