Bonum Certa Men Certa

HTC Sells Out to Microsoft (Microsoft 'Android Tax')

Al Capone mugshot and Steve Ballmer



Summary: Microsoft's racketeering is formally reaching Android and Microsoft is extorting some more companies behind the scenes, based on its latest statements

THE DEBT-SADDLED Microsoft, whose sales of Windows are declining quite sharply in recent years (in terms of revenue) along with other products [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7], long ago decided that racketeering [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] will be its business model against GNU/Linux and Free software (it began when Microsoft prioritised patenting -- not development -- around 2007 or before that). Novell legitimised this strategy from Microsoft by actually approaching Microsoft to make that possible.



“In order to extort the Linux-based Android, Microsoft is going past Google and through to distributors.”In 2007, both LG and Samsung (giant companies located in Korea) started paying Microsoft for Linux and currently they use Android (Samsung currently uses Bada, which is Android). These two companies were creating or passively establishing a bad neighbourhood by embracing Android while they were paying Microsoft for Linux. We warned about this many times. That being said, Google was already paying Microsoft for ActiveSync patents and Google is not against software patents, unlike Red Hat for example.

In order to extort the Linux-based Android, Microsoft is going past Google and through to distributors. The same strategy is being used against Red Hat Enterprise Linux as Microsoft targets/taxes its big users, e.g. Amazon. It's about threats and coercion (Microsoft is suing those who do not cooperate). The allegation? Patent violations. But it would hardly be a GUI thing; Microsoft is claiming to have invented (and now "own") some parts that are associated with operating system kernels -- parts it won't even disclosure.

Android and Windows distributor HTC is the latest company which sells out to Microsoft, just shortly after Apple had sued HTC and Microsoft then approached the case in support of Apple. We explicitly warned that there may have been a connection.

According to this morning's news (British time and British press):

HTC pays off Microsoft in Linux protection racket



CONVICTED MONOPOLIST Microsoft has managed to squeeze money from the smartphone maker HTC for using some of its much talked about but never revealed patents that Microsoft claims implicate Linux as part of the Android OS.

According to the Vole's press website, Microsoft and HTC have signed a patent agreement that provides broad coverage under Microsoft's patent portfolio for HTC's mobile phones running the Android mobile operating system. Under the terms of the agreement, Microsoft will receive royalties from HTC.


There is more from the British press, including additional Microsoft threats:

Microsoft's deputy counsel Horacio Gutierrez said the company was in talks with other "device manufacturers to address our concerns relative to the Android mobile platform".


This quote happens to come through the convicted monopolist's über-apologist Ina Fried (CNET), who was apparently already contacted by Microsoft to spread FUD. Fried is proudly acting as an accomplice in "patent terrorism" -- a term which we derive from the following statement:

"What we're seeing though now can be loosely described as patent terrorism, where people are using their patent horde as a threat [...] It's almost like a cold war stand over tactic; where I have these patents and if you breach these patents, I'm going to come after you and sue you."

--James Eagleton, systems product manager for Sun Microsystems



Red Hat or Google should report Microsoft for extortion. It is a violation of the law to do this in some countries.

Google is too feeble on the subject of software patents, so it probably won't do a thing. But Red Hat should definitely have Microsoft reported to the relevant authorities.

Microsoft is perpetually spreading the scourge of software patents around the world using lobbying groups (because 85% of Microsoft's patent filings are said to be for software/algorithms). A lot of GNU/Linux enthusiasts are ignoring the main issue, which is exactly that. Microsoft's "patent terrorism", which is assisted by unethical 'journalists' like Ina Fried/CNET, really needs to be stopped. The press is being filled with this Linux-hostile content which is not even backed by evidence because Microsoft makes it a whisper campaign rather than a defensible legal case.

Microsoft is attacking Android because Windows Mobile (or its new names/identities) has failed and has no chance of recovering (whereas Android is looking like the growth leader). Microsoft therefore wants to 'milk' the competitors for revenue. To quote another new article from The British press:

Microsoft won’t be dominating the OS much longer



SOFTWARE COLOSSUS Microsoft's dominance of the IT industry will disappear within five years, as it loses its grip on a facet of the industry where smartphone devices will be king.


There is this old saying that companies which resort to patent strategies simply admit that they failed to make products; instead, they start making 'portfolios' and threats (sometimes lawsuits).

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Lookout, It's Outlook
Outlook is all about the sharing!
Updated A Month Ago: Richard Stallman on Software Patents as Obstacles to Software Development
very recent update
Is BlueMail a Client of ZDNet Now?
Let's examine what BlueMail does to promote itself
OpenBSD Says That Even on Linux, Wayland Still Has a Number of Rough Edges (But IBM Wants to Make X Extinct)
IBM tries to impose unready software on users
 
The 'Smart' Attack on Power Grid Neutrality (or the Wet Dream of Tiered Pricing for Power, Essentially Punishing Poorer Households for Exercising Freedom Like Richer Households)
The dishonest marketing people tell us the age of disservice and discrimination is all about "smart" and "Hey Hi" (AI) as in algorithms akin to traffic-shaping in the context of network neutrality
Links 29/11/2023: VMware Layoffs and Too Many Microsofters Going Inside Google
Links for the day
Just What LINUX.COM Needed After Over a Month of Inactivity: SPAM SPAM SPAM (Linux Brand as a Spamfarm)
It's not even about Linux
Microsoft “Discriminated Based on Sexuality”
Relevant, as they love lecturing us on "diversity" and "inclusion"...
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, November 28, 2023
IRC logs for Tuesday, November 28, 2023
Media Cannot Tell the Difference Between Microsoft and Iran
a platform with back doors
Links 28/11/2023: New Zealand's Big Tobacco Pivot and Google Mass-Deleting Accounts
Links for the day
Justice is Still the Main Goal
The skulduggery seems to implicate not only Microsoft
[Teaser] Next Week's Part in the Series About Anti-Free Software Militants
an effort to 'cancel' us and spy on us
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news
Permacomputing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Professor Eben Moglen on How Social Control Media Metabolises Humans and Constraints Freedom of Thought
Nothing of value would be lost if all these data-harvesting giants (profiling people) vanished overnight
IRC Proceedings: Monday, November 27, 2023
IRC logs for Monday, November 27, 2023
When Microsoft Blocks Your Access to Free Software
"Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches." [Chicago Sun-Times]
Techrights Statement on 'Cancel Culture' Going Out of Control
relates to a discussion we had in IRC last night
Stuff People Write About Linux
revisionist pieces
Links 28/11/2023: Rosy Crow 1.4.3 and Google Drive Data Loss
Links for the day
Links 27/11/2023: Australian Wants Tech Companies Under Grip
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news
Links 27/11/2023: Underwater Data Centres and Gemini, BSD Style!
Links for the day
[Meme] Leaning Towards the Big Corporate CoC
Or leaning to "the green" (money)
Software Freedom Conservancy Inc in 2022: Almost Half a Million Bucks for Three People Who Attack Richard Stallman and Defame Linus Torvalds
Follow the money
[Meme] Identity Theft and Forgery
Coming soon...
Microsoft Has Less Than 1,000 Mail (MX) Servers Left, It's Virtually Dead in That Area (0.19% of the Market)
Exim at 254,000 servers, Postfix at 150,774, Microsoft down to 824
The Web is Dying, Sites Must Evolve or Die Too
Nowadays when things become "Web-based" it sometimes means more hostile and less open than before
Still Growing, Still Getting Faster
Articles got considerably longer too (on average)
In India, the One Percent is Microsoft and Mozilla
India is where a lot of software innovations and development happen, so this kind of matters a lot
Feeding False Information Using Sockpuppet Accounts and Imposters
online militants try every trick in the book, even illegal stuff
What News Industry???
Marketing, spam, and chatbots
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, November 26, 2023
IRC logs for Sunday, November 26, 2023
The Software Freedom Law Center's Eben Moglen Explains That We Already Had Free Software Almost Everywhere Before (Half a Century Ago)
how code was shared in the 1970s and 80s