Microsoft might license Windows Phone and RT for free

[HeyCori]

According to several tech sites, MS might remove the licensing costs for Windows Phone and RT. In a way they're already offering them for free. Only MS and the soon-to-be-MS Nokia makes RT products. Nokia dominates the WP arena but there won't be any revenue loss once the sale is completed. If anything there's going to be a substantial revenue bump. So yeah, offer them for free. That's more incentive for OEMs to take risks with sub $200 RT tablets.

 

[rebornempowered]

I would like to see Asus put RT on something like the Memo Pad HD 7. I really have need for a reader sized tablet but don't want Android or iOS. Hopefully this puts a fire under some OEM's to develop different form factors which, in my opinion, has always been a strength of Windows.

 

[Mike Gibson]

WinRT is a flop and isn't going anywhere. WinPRT will survive. The only reason to make WinPRT free is to try to rev up interest in Windows Phone. The problem is that MSFT is buying Nokia, which will scare away other phone OEMs. I wish MSFT would stop trying to get other OEMs to make WinPhones. Take WP in-house and optimize the hell out of it for their own (Nokia) hardware. It'll simplify WinPRT (e.g. no need for a generalized driver architecture) and lead to all sorts of other benefits (optimized power consumption, the ability to push cool new hardware features, etc.).

 

[5150 Joker]

I'd rather WP became exclusively Nokia. We don't need a flood of handset makers like android fragmenting the ecosystem.

Sent from my GT-I9100

 

[rakesh1995]

So Ms should take more money for android licences and make wp free. This will force a lot of oem to adopt it.
Them Ms will take revenue from their adds and Services and data mining.
WILL END UP BEING THE NEXT GOOGLE

No thanx

Sent from my Uuusumm Lumia 520 using Tapatalk

 

[rebornempowered]

So Ms should take more money for android licences and make wp free. This will force a lot of oem to adopt it.
Them Ms will take revenue from their adds and Services and data mining.
WILL END UP BEING THE NEXT GOOGLE

No thanx

Sent from my Uuusumm Lumia 520 using Tapatalk

They could probably make a lot of money just off their 30% take on paid apps. I'm not too worried about data mining from MS.

 

[Premium1]

I think this is smart if they really want OEM's to get behind their WP devices. I could also see this as a sign of how much/little OEM's want to produce for WP depending on their reaction. I still think the main thing holding WP back is the lack of apps the other platforms have. I think once you get those apps, more users will come and along with that, more OEM's will want to develop devices for WP.

 

[Premium1]

So Ms should take more money for android licences and make wp free. This will force a lot of oem to adopt it.
Them Ms will take revenue from their adds and Services and data mining.
WILL END UP BEING THE NEXT GOOGLE

No thanx

Sent from my Uuusumm Lumia 520 using Tapatalk

MS can't *take* more money for android licenses. They agreed to a certain amount, and can't just jack up the rate otherwise they would end up back in court sort of how samsung was for trying to demand ridiculous amounts for their patents. MS makes plenty off of android as it is that they could make WP free and still make a killing. You have to remember they would make more if they had more devices being sold and with the purchase of Nokia, that means more users choosing Nokia over the others which currently doesn't seem like that hard of a task to accomplish.

 

[anony_mouse]

It'll simplify WinPRT (e.g. no need for a generalized driver architecture).

It would be extremely stupid to drop the 'generalised driver architecture'. Microsoft would then have a develop a new driver architecture for every hardware platform they used, and changing hardware components would become very difficult and expensive. They will not do this.