Microsoft Is Getting Rich on Android | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft Is Getting Rich on Android

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35 pointsytNumbers48 comments

While it is funny that they make more on android, they are hardly "getting rich" off it. 100 mil for msft is peanuts. It doesn't move the needle.

Microsoft had net income of $5 billion last quarter. $100 million isn't "getting rich," but it is 2% of net income.

Granted, it's a smaller percentage of net revenues than of net income. But patent licenses are essentially pure profit, right? You're not doing the R&D for the purpose of getting patent licensing revenue.

It's a hundred million more than they deserve for that patent.

Does anyone know what patents are claimed by Microsoft on Android? Is it one for FAT16/32? Correct me if I am wrong but isn't FAT16/32 Microsoft's proprietary format? So why is it wrong for them to put a claim on it? Wouldn't Apple do the same?

FAT goes back to CPM, maybe even farther (long before Microsoft, and any patents on the original would have expired 20 years ago, and there weren't software patents back then). The extension from FAT12 to FAT16 and FAT32 is trivial.

I thought FAT came from DOS, which was Microsoft owned. If FAT wasn't Microsoft's original design, then I think its very unfair that they got the patent for it in the first place, let alone enforcing it.

The fat patents Microsoft holds describe encoding names that are not 8.3 format like dos/cpm

>Common name space for long and short filenames https://www.google.com/patents/US5758352

IIRC, CP/M had 8.3 file names, ctrl-Z terminated text files, and drive letters, but its on-disk structures where totally different. That certainly was the case when comparing it to FAT versions that allow for subdirectories (CP/M did not have subdirectories)

I had used, in 1984, a CP/M version that had FAT, so I assumed it went to the origins of CP/M. It doesn't, and credit for the original design does go to Microsoft in 1977. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAT_file_system#Historical_evol...

The point still stands though: any patent protection for the original implementation would have expired before 1997, which is more than 15 years ago. And it shouldn't have received (in fact, didn't receive) patent protection.

(replying to myself because it is too late to edit)

I was mistaken above; FAT is actually a Microsoft design, although it predates MS DOS - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAT_file_system#Historical_evol...

Its an inferior filesystem (a data layout convention, nothing more) that Android supports to be compatible with windows systems.

Imagine BMW patenting the shape of the hole you use to fuel your car, and then sending invoices to every fuel station.

I agree, FAT is very old and an inferior filesystem especially when compared to EXT.

>Imagine BMW patenting the shape of the hole you use to fuel your car, and then sending invoices to every fuel station.

That is an unfair comparison. I would have agreed to that statement if the patent was vague but it is very specific to implementation.

>Android supports to be compatible with windows systems.

Neither do I see any other reason to stick with FAT16/32 unless it is somehow required on booting.

You should not be able to patent data exchange formats; getting money from said patents makes one take a huge karma hit.

I made a sabbatical in hating Microsoft for a few years but now I see why it is important for me to resume doing so.

>You should not be able to patent data exchange formats;

I fully agree. I despise patents on anything that stifles interoperability. However this wasn't anything new. Din't we grow up with patents on GIF? Isn't Apple doing the same with patents on NFC sessions? [1] Or Google with their proprietary file system[2]? Don't even get me started on the bucket load of patents IBM has collected over the decade. Then why single out Microsoft? Patent wars between corporations is nothing new. (However, I would develop a deep hatred if they went after non-profit org like Linux with this.)

The point I am trying to make is, it was/is common for corporations to file patents on most trivial things. I find the Patent Office at fault here.

[1]http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2013/05/apple-fi...

[2]http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/06/google-file-system-...

GIF patent is our measure of Evil. We measure Evil in GIF patent fractions.

One thing is to patent, the other thing is to enforce a bogus patent/"license" it and collect money. The latter has no excuses for a product company.

Has Google gone after anyone over their file system patents?

Because it is cool to hate Microsoft while making a blind eye to all the other corporations that behave the same way.

Guess what, you are arrogant and wrong.

Personal attacks? really?

"Because it is cool to hate Microsoft" is a personal attack by itself.

Your position seems most inconsistent to me. FAT is a prime example of a technology that is essential for interoperability (yet trivial compared to modern alternatives). Good luck exchanging files using a USB thumb drive formatted with EXT4. Or getting the pictures from your camera SD card without supporting FAT32. FAT16/32 are the only filesystems that work seamlessly in Windows, OS X and Linux.

It's not about filing patents. Patents are routinely filed for defensive purpose and it's hard to blame the companies that do it, especially in light of the abuse by e.g. Microsoft. It's what companies do with the patents. Like getting Motorola phones banned in Germany due to FAT16 patent infringement [1].

[1] http://www.zdnet.com/motorola-android-devices-banned-in-germ...

> Neither do I see any other reason to stick with FAT16/32 unless it is somehow required on booting.

It is required under UEFI. Fat16 and 32 are the only recognized file system formats used by UEFI firmware, so you have to have a UEFI system partition using that filesystem. If Microsoft can patent troll people over it, technically that means there is no way to prepare a system for UEFI booting unless running Microsoft software to create a fat partition, and write to it.

Which would be stupendous bullshit.

What about ExFAT, could Android had implemented that? Is it royalty-free? Does Apple have to pay Microsoft for the ability to access FAT partitions?

Does Apple have to pay Microsoft for the ability to access FAT partitions?

Apple & MS have a cross-licensing agreement dating back to 1997 that has been renewed at once (and probably more than once). FAT patents are presumably included under this.

It's way worse than that. Microsoft uses FUD tatics to sign patent licenses. You can check Microsft vs B&N case, in which B&N showed the kind of patents [1] Microsoft is using against Android. (By the way, Microsoft had to invest in B&N to end this case. This is how strong good these patents are) It's obvious that Microsoft is using IBM's old playbook on patents[2], where it's cheaper to license than fight.

[1] http://www.geekwire.com/2011/barnes-nobles-29page-slide-deck...

[2] http://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html

What I'm more surprised is that the OEM's aren't using the open source alternative instead.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTI3OTQ

This is how a Microsoft exec described the patents when they filed suit against B&N [1] (see [2,3] for details)

The Microsoft-created features protected by the patents infringed by the Nook and Nook Color tablet are core to the user experience. For example, the patents we asserted today protect innovations that:

• Give people easy ways to navigate through information provided by their device apps via a separate control window with tabs;

• Enable display of a webpage’s content before the background image is received, allowing users to interact with the page faster;

• Allow apps to superimpose download status on top of the downloading content;

• Permit users to easily select text in a document and adjust that selection; and

• Provide users the ability to annotate text without changing the underlying document.

And here's a list of patents from a lawsuit against Mororola [4] (the first two concern FAT16 I believe):

5,579,517: Common name space for long and short filenames

5,758,352: Common name space for long and short filenames (yes, again)

6,621,746: Monitoring entropic conditions of a flash memory device as an indicator for invoking erasure operations

6,826,762: Radio interface layer in a cell phone with a set of APIs having a hardware-independent proxy layer and a hardware-specific driver layer

6,909,910: Method and system for managing changes to a contact database

7,644,376: Flexible architecture for notifying applications of state changes

5,664,133: Context sensitive menu system/menu behavior

6,578,054: Method and system for supporting off-line mode of operation and synchronization using resource state information

6,370,566: Generating meeting requests and group scheduling from a mobile device

As for your questions: So why is it wrong for them to put a claim on it? Wouldn't Apple do the same? It's not like Apple gets a free pass when they sue Android manufacturers for patent infringement...

[1] http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_on_the_issues/archive/2...

[2] http://androidcommunity.com/barnes-noble-reveals-microsofts-...

[3] http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2011111122291296

[4] http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/10/01/microsoft-files-itc-p...

Thanks. I'll spare you from the obligatory rant on how obvious most of these patents are.

fat16/32 are the only recognized file system formats of EFI system partitions in the UEFI firmware standard.

If they are patent encumbered, that is worse than the secure boot nonsense. It would mean you can't format a drive for booting on a system using UEFI firmware unless you had windows software to create and write into that partition.

The patents cover long file names (which are embedded in the directory using "illegal" directory entries).

UEFI users (as in: OS installer) could restrain themselves to FAT16 with 8.3 names (FAT16 since the boot partition is usually tiny), and I haven't seen any longer file names yet.

One thing to note is Windows 7 won't recognize a FAT16 formatted UEFI partition, but Windows 8 works fine. I use fat16 for my uefi partitions because I only ever add in memtest and Arch. Good job MS!

The idea Microsoft gets money from Android devices despite not doing anything other than stiffling innovation for the last ten years makes me want ppl in Microsoft have bad stuff happening to them.

Stifling innovation? Microsoft was developing software for mobile devices more than 10 years before Google did and for a long time it was the main driver behind the market for PDA/smart phone components (e.g., colour/touch screens, ARM CPUs).

They sort of parked their mobile devices progress in the same sense they tried to park IE forever at version 6 and Windows at version XP.

I guess they figured out they no longer have to innovate now when all the market was theirs following the fall of (Netscape, Mac & other OSes, Palm).

And when iPhone came the whole Windows Mobile thing imploded like a house of cards.

You cannot compare the failure of Windows Mobile to IE6. The situation created by IE6 popularity was in all likelyhood a fluke, I am not sure Microsoft had a grand nefarious plan that they successfully executed at all. Besides without IE6 we would have most likely had to wait longer for Firefox and Chrome.

I don't think it's a grand nefarous plan.

They just thought that they made it. That all the revolutions of desktop browsing (or PDA OSes) are over, and what they have to do until the end of eternity is introducing small evolutionary changes while preserving reverse compatibility.

And that they did. But they were wrong, browsing revolution happened which left IE6, 7 and partially 8 in the dust. Mobile happened, which made them throw away all the Windows Mobile and make it from scratch.

They were not ready to innovate by writing heroic projects fast and tried to persuade market that glacial is okay from now.

FYI the new Windows 8 mobile platform is better then anything I have used running Android so wishing harm on employees in MS for "stiffling innovation" is quite funny.

Agree with you entirely. I've completely switched to Nokia/WinPhone 8. Had a Lumia 710, now got a 620. The latter was dirt cheap (sim free), smooth as anything and it just works flawlessly.

This is after a history of Symbian, iPhone, various androids and a blackberry. The symbians were pretty good, the iPhones (3,4,4s) all had minor annoying bugs and to be honest felt like surgical instruments rather than phones, the androids were all buggy, slow and unreliable (HTC desire, Galaxy S2, Galaxy Ace). Blackberries are fiddly and odd and mine smelt like poo after a week which was odd (9310). Apparently something to do with the glue they use.

I'm literally relieved to use a windows phone!

Hope you try Tizen / Sailfish / Ubuntu Phone / Firefox OS. Because they are also options.

Yes will definitely try Firefox phones when they are available in quantity! Its the most interesting proposition so far.

Google's somewhat foolish acquisition of Motorola would begin to show some dividends if they could leverage Motorola's patents to force a cross licensing agreement which didn't involve paying these fees.

This is unfortunate for Android but consumers are still much better off by having a 3rd major operating system. I really hope Android(or Chrome/Android) becomes a viable desktop solution.

Aren't these numbers ignoring the possibility that some of those Windows Phone revenues are from app/game purchases on the Windows Phone store?

The revenue from apps/games is tiny.

We don't even know for sure how much Nokia pays for licensing Windows Phone, do we?

Microsoft is pumping cash into Nokia, not the other way around.

That doesn't necessarily mean Nokia isn't paying a license fee. Also Microsoft is paying Nokia for using its maps, so I'm not sure how far the "freebies" go, on either side.

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