ViewSonic and Acer Are Now Paying Microsoft to Use Android

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Posted September 8, 2011 at 8:15pm by Shalom Levytam

Microsoft today confirmed it has reached license deals with ViewSonic and Acer which will see the two companies pay Microsoft royalties on the sales of their Android powered devices. The deal also covers upcoming devices powered by Google's Chrome OS.

"We are pleased that Acer is taking advantage of our industrywide licensing program established to help companies address Android's IP issues," said Horacio Gutierrez, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel of Intellectual Property and Licensing at Microsoft. "This agreement is an example of how industry leaders can reach commercially reasonable arrangements that address intellectual property."

Microsoft is reportedly demanding that Samsung pay $15 for each smartphone handset it makes based on Android. Samsung may be trying to lower the payment to about $10 in exchange for a deeper alliance with Microsoft for the Windows platform.

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ViewSonic and Acer Are Now Paying Microsoft to Use Android

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Nick - September 8, 2011 at 8:57pm

Why do they have to pay Microsoft for Android? Microsoft didn't create Android, Google did.

Johnny - September 8, 2011 at 9:27pm

that's because google made a blunder when it comes to licensing android and now the operating system infringes on several patents owned by microsoft which in turn demands licensing fees for every android product basically all the big companies with tons of patents at their disposal could do the same and that's why google bought motorola recently (especially after apple and microsoft buying nortel's patents) because it had to gear up for the patent war

farpthor - September 9, 2011 at 9:20pm

Punctuation, anyone?

gun - September 10, 2011 at 6:37am

confuse