4 ms·

Well Microsoft still makes more money off of Android than Windows Phone with their patent licensing deal. Why go through the trouble of making your own Android

Well Microsoft still makes more money off of Android than Windows Phone with their patent licensing deal. Why go through the trouble of making your own Android phone when you make great money (some say $5 per phone, which is about $2bn) off of other people doing it.

Someone1234 12y ago
You know capitalism works when a company gets $5 per handset for doing absolutely nothing. The patent system is totally farcical.
- delecti 12y ago
  Except Microsoft actually does innovate, and they also use their patents. They pour quite a bit of money into their research division, why shouldn't they get a return from that investment? There are absolutely huge issues with the patent system, but Microsoft's patent licensing profits are not among them.
  - mythz 12y ago
    Sorry explain exactly why MS deserve to make more money than the actual Company investing all the R&D into developing Android OS just because they can use their cash warchest to acquire offensive patents they're anti-competitively using to artificially inflate the cost of their competitor products? Is this the kind of ideal use of software patents that rewards innovators and end-consumers?
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
      - mythz 12y ago
        What sad Strawman are you trying to manufacture here? It's absolutely MS's strategy to acquire offensive and broad patents to anti-competitively use to hurt their competition and devalue their products instead of trying to compete on merit. Google has every right to be able to develop their OS and license it at whatever terms or cost they see fit especially when they ultimately benefit consumers. MS tried to use their cash warchest (acquired from their Monopoly markets) to acquire offensive obvious, broad landmine patents that they hide behind NDA's so to not disclose exactly what patents Android is supposed to have infringed on so that they can extort licensing fees from Android Manufacturers into artificially raising the prices of Android devices.
        deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
  - adl 12y ago
    It's all fun and games in your job/startup until Microsoft comes in and demands royalties for their patents (most of them obvious implementations). But when it happens to HTC, Samsung, etc it's just: "why shouldn't they get a return from that investment?" Microsoft (or any other company for the matter) demanding patent royalties after treating to sue a product they had no hand in producing, is wrong. Earning more money form their patent extortion from a competitor's product than it's own implementation, it's just sad and pathetic.
  - WildUtah 12y ago
    They pour quite a bit of money into their research division, why shouldn't they get a return from that investment? They should get a return. But nothing they created contributed to Android, so they shouldn't be extorting money from Android vendors. The patents that Microsoft has been willing to assert publicly against Android are dominated by FAT patents which describe a system for working around the limits of Microsoft's own file system. Nobody wants to use Microsoft's file system for its own merits -- plenty of free systems exist that have none of its drawbacks and Android uses them internally. Android uses FAT only to interchange information with Microsoft systems and others based on their backwards filesystem. The patent system has been abused to allow Microsoft to block compatibility without contributing anything technological. It's a classical failure mode of the patent system which was supposed to promote innovation and publication, not vendor lock in.
- throwawaykf05 12y ago
  1. "Absolutely nothing"? Let's not forget Microsoft was a huge player in mobile pre-iPhone, and many of the features we take for granted were innovated by them back then. The fact that Android just re-implemented them does not mean that the original innovations lost any value. 2. The oft-repeated "litigating instead of competing" meme is wrong. Windows Phone does compete on the merits. WP devices regularly get decent reviews. Most people who've tried them prefer the OS to Android. Personally I've seen WP work smoother on lower-specced hardware than Android on a more powerful device. Windows Phone actually did something innovative when it came out and differentiated itself greatly from the the iPhone. Something that, you know, Android didn't bother with until Apple started suing left and right. Arguably the only reason Android has the market share it has is because Google gives it away for free, because its search monopoly profits allow it to do so. When Microsoft did the same thing with browsers, they were being "anticompetitive", but when Google does it, it's not? If you think Google does not browbeat OEMs the way Microsoft did, look into the Skyhook lawsuit where a whole bunch of confidential licensing agreements spilled out. 3. If Google can attack Microsoft's business model, Microsoft can certainly attack Google's. People here just don't like Microsoft's attacks because they don't like patents in general. I mean, every patent ever is automatically deemed to be "broad" and "bogus", but nobody even knows how patents work.

Someone1234 12y ago

You know capitalism works when a company gets $5 per handset for doing absolutely nothing. The patent system is totally farcical.

delecti 12y ago
Except Microsoft actually does innovate, and they also use their patents. They pour quite a bit of money into their research division, why shouldn't they get a return from that investment? There are absolutely huge issues with the patent system, but Microsoft's patent licensing profits are not among them.
- mythz 12y ago
  Sorry explain exactly why MS deserve to make more money than the actual Company investing all the R&D into developing Android OS just because they can use their cash warchest to acquire offensive patents they're anti-competitively using to artificially inflate the cost of their competitor products? Is this the kind of ideal use of software patents that rewards innovators and end-consumers?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
    - mythz 12y ago
      What sad Strawman are you trying to manufacture here? It's absolutely MS's strategy to acquire offensive and broad patents to anti-competitively use to hurt their competition and devalue their products instead of trying to compete on merit. Google has every right to be able to develop their OS and license it at whatever terms or cost they see fit especially when they ultimately benefit consumers. MS tried to use their cash warchest (acquired from their Monopoly markets) to acquire offensive obvious, broad landmine patents that they hide behind NDA's so to not disclose exactly what patents Android is supposed to have infringed on so that they can extort licensing fees from Android Manufacturers into artificially raising the prices of Android devices.
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
- adl 12y ago
  It's all fun and games in your job/startup until Microsoft comes in and demands royalties for their patents (most of them obvious implementations). But when it happens to HTC, Samsung, etc it's just: "why shouldn't they get a return from that investment?" Microsoft (or any other company for the matter) demanding patent royalties after treating to sue a product they had no hand in producing, is wrong. Earning more money form their patent extortion from a competitor's product than it's own implementation, it's just sad and pathetic.
- WildUtah 12y ago
  They pour quite a bit of money into their research division, why shouldn't they get a return from that investment? They should get a return. But nothing they created contributed to Android, so they shouldn't be extorting money from Android vendors. The patents that Microsoft has been willing to assert publicly against Android are dominated by FAT patents which describe a system for working around the limits of Microsoft's own file system. Nobody wants to use Microsoft's file system for its own merits -- plenty of free systems exist that have none of its drawbacks and Android uses them internally. Android uses FAT only to interchange information with Microsoft systems and others based on their backwards filesystem. The patent system has been abused to allow Microsoft to block compatibility without contributing anything technological. It's a classical failure mode of the patent system which was supposed to promote innovation and publication, not vendor lock in.
throwawaykf05 12y ago
1. "Absolutely nothing"? Let's not forget Microsoft was a huge player in mobile pre-iPhone, and many of the features we take for granted were innovated by them back then. The fact that Android just re-implemented them does not mean that the original innovations lost any value. 2. The oft-repeated "litigating instead of competing" meme is wrong. Windows Phone does compete on the merits. WP devices regularly get decent reviews. Most people who've tried them prefer the OS to Android. Personally I've seen WP work smoother on lower-specced hardware than Android on a more powerful device. Windows Phone actually did something innovative when it came out and differentiated itself greatly from the the iPhone. Something that, you know, Android didn't bother with until Apple started suing left and right. Arguably the only reason Android has the market share it has is because Google gives it away for free, because its search monopoly profits allow it to do so. When Microsoft did the same thing with browsers, they were being "anticompetitive", but when Google does it, it's not? If you think Google does not browbeat OEMs the way Microsoft did, look into the Skyhook lawsuit where a whole bunch of confidential licensing agreements spilled out. 3. If Google can attack Microsoft's business model, Microsoft can certainly attack Google's. People here just don't like Microsoft's attacks because they don't like patents in general. I mean, every patent ever is automatically deemed to be "broad" and "bogus", but nobody even knows how patents work.