Microsoft and Facebook play nice with Patents. Apple and Samsung tae should take note.

Dear Apple and Samsung,

You might want take  note of what Microsoft and Facebook did today. Rather than squabbling over patents they worked out a $550 million patent agreement in which the social networking giant will purchase a portion of the patent portfolio Microsoft recently acquired recently from Aol. Facebook gets 650 patents and license the remaining patents from Microsoft. Microsoft will keep 275  patents and license 650 it transferred to Facebook.  Brad Smith, EVP and general counsel of Microsoft said that “Today’s agreement with Facebook enables us to recoup over half of our costs while achieving our goals from the AOL auction. As we said earlier this month, we had submitted the winning AOL bid in order to obtain a durable license to the full AOL portfolio and ownership of certain patents that complement our existing portfolio.” Ted Ullyot, Facebook’s general counsel, said, “this is another significant step in our ongoing process of building an intellectual property portfolio to protect Facebook’s interests over the long term.”

Microsoft, Facebook Announce Patent Agreement

April 23, 2012
REDMOND, Wash. and MENLO PARK, Calif. — April 23, 2012 — Microsoft Corp. and Facebook announced today a definitive agreement under which Microsoft will assign to Facebook the right to purchase a portion of the patent portfolio it recently agreed to acquire from AOL Inc. Facebook has agreed to purchase this portion for $550 million in cash.

In the initial AOL auction, Microsoft secured the ability to own or assign approximately 925 U.S. patents and patent applications plus a license to AOL’s remaining patent portfolio, which contains approximately 300 additional patents that were not for sale.

As a result of today’s agreement, Facebook will obtain ownership of approximately 650 AOL patents and patent applications, plus a license to the AOL patents and applications that Microsoft will purchase and own.

Upon closing of this transaction with Facebook, Microsoft will retain ownership of approximately 275 AOL patents and applications; a license to the approximately 650 AOL patents and applications that will now be owned by Facebook; and a license to approximately 300 patents that AOL did not sell in its auction.

“Today’s agreement with Facebook enables us to recoup over half of our costs while achieving our goals from the AOL auction,” said Brad Smith, executive vice president and general counsel, Microsoft. “As we said earlier this month, we had submitted the winning AOL bid in order to obtain a durable license to the full AOL portfolio and ownership of certain patents that complement our existing portfolio.”

“Today’s agreement with Microsoft represents an important acquisition for Facebook,” said Ted Ullyot, general counsel, Facebook. “This is another significant step in our ongoing process of building an intellectual property portfolio to protect Facebook’s interests over the long term.”

The parties are evaluating the accounting treatment for these transactions. These transactions are also subject to customary closing conditions, including clearance under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended.

Apple iPad just keeps eating Blackberrys

 

Apple’s iPad pretty much owns the tablet mar­ket. It’s competitors really can not compare. Sorry competitors I have more bad news. iPad’s enterprise market share is growing. One wonders does more tablets mean less windows machines?

Good Tech­nol­o­gy a enter­prise mobile ser­vices ven­dor reports that Apple’s iPad account­ed for 96% of tablets acti­vat­ed at the com­pa­nies that use the com­pa­ny’s ser­vices. The iPhone accounted for 53% of new phone activations. That is a very big percentage. It comes out to be about 71% of  mobile enter­prise devices  iOS. That does not sound very good for Blackberry, Android  and Windows device.

CES 2012: Rubens Saintel Interview with Line2 CEO, Peter Sisson

I was able to catch up with the CEO of Line2 Peter Sisson. We had a in-depth conversation about the future of the VOIP app on all platforms. What is next for the company and how it compares to other companies our there with similar services.

Peter Sisson is a telecom geek disrupting mobile communications by using social, calendar, and location information to make calls more productive and lifestyle-friendly. Line2 is Peter’s 4th company. His last company, Teleo, was acquired by Microsoft in 2005.

Peter Sisson, CEO of Line2 (also known as Toktumi), is an entrepreneur and VoIP pioneer. He has been on the forefront of the Internet industry for 15 years, starting four companies and nurturing many others through advisory roles.  He was named one of the top 10 “people to watch” by CNET, and won the Arthur Anderson Best Practices Award for Strategic Leadership with Wineshopper.com

CES 2012: SaintelDaily.com Microsoft Kinect goes to Sesame Street

This is the first interactive Kinect game. What it seems like is those all interactive DVDs that would wait for you to press a button before it would move on to the next frame. I’m not sure this thing is ready for prime time. Take a look for yourself.

CES 2012: Steve Ballmer & Bill Gates Keynote Autotune

All I have to say is Bing Bing Bing

Can Widows 8 powered by ARM help Microsoft make a dent in the tablet market?

For Microsoft to be make any kind of move in the marketplace dominated by Apple’s iPad; they will have to price it right. That is the single biggest hurdle that all manufactures seem to miss. There are some exceptions. The HP TouchPad became a run away hit after the fire sale hat lowered the price to $99. Amazon’s Kindle Fire has sold incredibly well since launch. There are claims as high as 2 million sold weekly.

What the Windows 8 based tablets need to do is not only have a lower pice point but also offer the same if not better features than the iOS Apple iPad 2. If that is not hard enough, you have to have enough applications in your AppStore to make the device easy enough for a child to use; yet robust enough to keep the interest of the fickle tech savvy early adapters.

The tablet that was used at the the last Microsoft press conference to feature a CEO as a keynote at CES was running on an Nvidia chip. The new Tegra 3 processor for mobile devices to be exact. From what I see at the keynote it ran Windows 8 without so much as a hiccup. The Tegra 3 uses the ARM architecture rather than the Intel based architecture. With this development it is clear that Microsoft is serious about users having the same Windows experience regardless of the device they own.

Although I think the real winner in the tablet wars wont be Apple, Google & Microsoft. It will be the chip manufactures. Nvidia is the largest stand-alone maker of PC graphics chips and with its Tegra 3 the line between what can be done on desktop versus a tablet becomes truly blurry. Take for instance the Asustek Transformer Prime tablet-and-PC hybrid. Combined with Google’s Ice Cream Sandwich and the Tegra 3 this device is a computer capable of running full 60 frame HD games. Tegra 3 will also start to show up Lamborghini and cars being made by Audi. So in the end Windows 8 may not be enough to crack the tablet market because it is not staying still enough for a big company like Microsoft to figure out. They are a software company above all.

Verizon Fios on Xbox 360? Yes, thanks Microsoft

Microsoft has finally made good on its E3 pledge for live TV via your Xbox Live. Verizon Fios was download and we will have a full review later today. Standby..

Microsoft Xbox 360 gets new media content providers; HBO go & more

Microsoft has struck deals with over 30 content providers on the Xbox 360. The full list of companies that Microsoft has brought together are leaders in the entertainment industry. Here’s a short list of those that stand out right away:

• Comcast: Only Xfinity On Demand
• Clear Channel: iHeartRadio will be the only digital radio service on Xbox Live, complete with Kinect support. So Last.Fm going away?
• HBO: A new version of the HBO GO
• NBC Universal: Content from Bravo, SyFy and more.
• Manga Entertainment: Very big catalog of streaming anime.
• Crackle: Sony Pictures Entertainment backlog of movies
• EPIX: MGM, Lionsgate and Paramount catalog of movies.
• UFC: Streaming fights and interactivity  like ESPN.
• Verizon: 26 channels from the Verizon FiOS

Microsoft’s existing content providers AT&T, ESPN, Netflix, and Hulu Plus. Microsoft also made friends with some International content providers as well such as BBC (UK), Canal+ (France/Spain), MediaSet (Italy), and SBS On Demand (Australia).

Microsoft plays Goodfella says to Android OEM, Fu*k You Pay me!

If you have seen the movie Goodfellas then the title this post resonated with you right away. That is pretty much what Google feels is happening. Google issued an irate response to Microsoft’s cross-licensing agreement with Samsung.The deal calls for Samsung to pay royalties to Microsoft for each Android smartphone sold. Microsoft has almost the same agreements with ViewSonic, HTC and Acer. HTC and Samsung were responsible for more than half of all Android phones sold in 2011 in the United States. Analysts estimate Android pulls in a most 5 times the revenue that Windows Phone does for Microsoft.

Google said “This is the same tactic we’ve seen time and again from Microsoft. Failing to succeed in the smartphone market, they are resorting to legal measures to extort profit from others’ achievements and hinder the pace of innovation. We remain focused on building new technology and supporting Android partners.”

Microsoft’s general counsel Brad Smith and deputy general counsel Horacio Gutierrez wrote in the post that “We recognize that some businesses and commentators – Google chief among them – have complained about the potential impact of patents on Android and software innovation; To them, we say this: look at today’s announcement. If industry leaders such as Samsung and HTC can enter into these agreements, doesn’t this provide a clear path forward?” In other words if you use Android you will be paying Microsoft protection money.

HTC has jumped on to The Cloud: Strikes deal with Dropbox

It seems that everyone is jumping into the cloud. Even mobile phone makers. Microsoft has Skydrive but to be fair they were in the cloud before the cool kids came. Apple has the iCloud and now HTC has partnered with Dropbox.

HTC latest Android handsets will come with the free normal 2GB that Dropbox gives everyone and 3GB of extra storage. Sense 3.5 devices will be able to take advantage of this deal starting in October. You will be able to save files on your phone and have them automatically synced to whatever other devices you have running the Dropbox. HTC will not be bringing this offer to Windows Phone 7 anytime soon due to Microsoft’s Skydrive. Skydrive gives it’s phone owners 25GB of free storage.