Microsoft has always been a company that builds software, and even if they have built some hardware in the past and more recently tablets and smartphones, they now seem to be dedicating their efforts to get some profit out of their services. An example of this is their Office 365 productivity suite, which includes software for computers and other mobile platforms like the Android operating system. Since it is also integrated in the company’s cloud system OneDrive, it offers additional benefits such as document syncing and a group of people could modify a certain shared document and changes would be reflected on every platform in real time.
ASUS is a company that has become famous for building hardware dedicated to the home and office including laptops and other related components. More recently, the company has been releasing mobile products including tablets, smartphones, and even some smartwatches. Now, both companies are announcing a new patent licensing agreement between them. This means that both companies will work together to integrate Microsoft’s software and services into the tablets and smartphones made by ASUS. Particularly, Office will potentially be pre-installed in some of ASUS’ future Android devices. The agreement also allows sharing technologies between the two companies to bring new and innovative product solutions.
Nick Psyhogeos, president of Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC said that “This agreement delivers significant value for both companies. 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”. While Vincent Hong, General Counsel from Asus shared the point of view of the company saying “This agreement will give us both a greater ability to innovate for our customers. We see it leading to broad partnership opportunities for future technologies and a strengthened relationship between our two companies as leaders of the technology industry.” Samsung already had a similar agreement with Microsoft, as they pre-installed some of the company’s apps including Skype, OneDrive and OneNote in some of their flagship phones. This seems to be an attempt from Microsoft to make Android users switch to their apps instead of using the ones made by Google, which are included as part of their operating system.