Report: HTC Paying Microsoft $5 Per Android Phone

[engine]

Report: HTC Paying Microsoft $5 Per Android Phone [businessinsider.com]

Microsoft gets $5 for every HTC phone running Android, according to Citi analyst Walter Pritchard, who released a big report on Microsoft this morning.

Microsoft is getting that money thanks to a patent settlement with HTC over intellectual property infringement.

Microsoft is suing other Android phone makers, and it's looking for $7.50 to $12.50 per device, says Pritchard.

We knew hardware companies were paying Microsoft, we just didn't know how much. (In October Steve Ballmer said, "Android has a patent fee. It's not like Android's free.")

[graeme_p]

Of course it might be like MS's settlement with Novell over SuSE Linux which turned out to be a complex deal which, if I remember correctly, meant that MS was paying Novell more than Novell paid MS.