Microsoft strikes a deal with Asus: We won't sue if you put Office on Android devices
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Distribution: Debian, Red Hat, Slackware, Fedora, Ubuntu
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Microsoft strikes a deal with Asus: We won't sue if you put Office on Android devices
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Microsoft has apparently traded an agreement not to sue Asustek over its Android patents in exchange for an a deal that will put Office software on Android smartphones and tablets designed by Asus.
About a day after Microsoft and Google buried the hatchet with their own patent agreement, Asus and Microsoft also made peace. In a statement on Thursday, the two companies said they’d expanded a previous patent licensing agreement between the two companies that covers Asus-made Android phone and tablets and “Microsoft software, devices and services.”
Specifically, the agreement also provides for “closer integration” between the two companies, including “pre-installation by Asus of Microsoft Office productivity services on Asus Android smartphones and tablets” as well as collaboration to develop new products between the two companies.
“This agreement delivers significant value for both companies,” Nick Psyhogeos, president of Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC, said in a statement. “Beyond ensuring continued improvements to our products, it opens the door to the kind of collaboration between Microsoft and ASUS made possible only through mutual respect and alignment on intellectual property.”
Microsoft has struck a similar patent-for-Office deal before. In February, Microsoft settled a patent dispute with Samsung. A few months later, Samsung agreed to bundle selected Microsoft apps onto its Galaxy phones and tablets. (OneNote and OneDrive, for example, come preloaded on the new unlocked Galaxy Note 5, as do phones from Sprint and T-Mobile; Verizon, however, has reportedly removed both apps.)
This agreement delivers significant value for both companies...
At great expense for end users.
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...it opens the door...
... to a great many things that took great effort over a long time to get closed.
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...made possible only through mutual respect (between Microsoft and ASUS)...
But with no respect for the FREEDOMs or the desires of users.
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...and alignment on intellectual property.
Micro$oft's mis-use and abuse of inherently vile "intellectual property" law was the single greatest evil that drove the emergence of FREE software through the 80's and 90's, and nothing has changed for the better in that arena.
This is just another loss for FREEDOM on the FREE software front, and there is precious little left. Kiss it all goodbye while the corpse is at least still warm.
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