Microsoft Is Attracting Android OEMs To Pre-Install Its Apps With Discounts On Patent Licensing Fees

Last month, Microsoft announced that they have signed strategic agreements with leading global OEMs Samsung, Dell, and regional OEMs including TrekStor of Germany, JP Sa Couto of Portugal, Datamatic of Italy, DEXP of Russia, Hipstreet of Canada, QMobile of Pakistan, Tecno of Africa, and Casper of Turkey, as well as top original device manufacturer Pegatron. These 12 hardware partners will pre-install Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, OneDrive and Skype on Android devices coming to market later this year.

According to the report from Digitimes, Microsoft is attracting more OEMs for this program by offering discounts on patent licensing fees. For example, If an Android OEM is paying $3 per device to Microsoft for patent licensing, they will be happy to reduce that fees to $1.5 per device by pre-installing few Microsoft apps on their devices. While $1.5 saving per device might look very less, it is a significant money for Android OEMs. If an OEM is shipping 40 million devices per year, it can save over $60 million out of this new offer from Microsoft.

Microsoft has already signed Android patent licensing program with numerous companies including ODMs such as Hon Hai, Pegatron Corp., Quanta Computer Inc., Compal Electronics Inc., Wistron Corp., and OEMs such as Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., LG Electronics, ZTE Corp., and HTC Corp. Hopefully, Microsoft can convince more OEMs to pre-install their apps on Android devices.

Source: Digitimes