Microsoft's patent deal with Kyocera Mita goes back to November 2007. It involves Linux. As far as Novell goes, there is only a insignificant connection between Novell and Kyocera Mita, but the two are committed to equally-appalling deals. Kyocera has just snatched the mobile phone unit of Sanyo, so it might be worth looking into Sanyo's products in the future. It would be interesting to see if there can be royalties involved, by association. We have already seen that as it happened when Xandros acquired Scalix.

From Associated Press here is the article covering this major transaction:

Sanyo Electric Co. said Monday it will sell its troubled mobile phone operations to Kyocera Corp.

The two electronics companies have said the value of the business to be transferred is about $375 million, or 40 billion yen. Including debt the deal — set for completion April 1 — is worth about 50 billion yen although a final transaction price has yet to be agreed.

[...]

Under Monday's agreement, about 2,000 employees in Sanyo's mobile phone operation will be transferred to Kyocera, which will continue to use the Sanyo brand on handsets at home and overseas.

[...]

Kyocera has close ties with telecommunications company KDDI Corp.

This would be bad news if and only if Sanyo mobile phones were/are running Linux. ⬆