Microsoft and Google end five year battle over patents

[HEXUS]

18 such cases are settled, in the US and Germany, companies pledge to work together.

Read more.

[Nikumba]

Sounds good, maybe we will get Google Apps on Windows Phone now esp YouTube

[Sunderas]

Sounds good, maybe we will get Google Apps on Windows Phone now esp YouTube

This has already been announced to be in the near future. These news are only going to make it happen in a shorter time frame.

[Tabbykatze]

Wow, did not expect these two giants to sit down at a table and work things out like adults...

[shaithis]

Wow, did not expect these two giants to sit down at a table and work things out like adults...

Neither of them have been silly when dealing with patents in the past, unlike a certain fruity competitor......

[crossy]

Other notable Nadella moves since taking the reins include embracing Linux and releasing Microsoft Office on a wide range of competitor OSes.

I know he got some bad press for these, but personally I think these very shrewd moves. I saw a review last week that basically asked the rhetorical question "why bother with Office 'compatibles' on your Android and iOS devices when the 'real deal' is available and at a decent price?".

From a personal point of view, while being no great fan of Microsoft, and Windows in particular, I'm actually pretty tempted by the current Office365 "family" offering. Doesn't hurt any that Word, etc on Android are actually pretty good apps. Darn them!

Neither of them have been silly when dealing with patents in the past, unlike a certain fruity competitor......

Quite!

[AGTDenton]

I think this is less about friendship and more about the realisation that it is a complete waste of time, resources and money for all involved.
Nadella's move is to remind everyone that Microsoft is a "Devices and Services" company.

[Tabbykatze]

Neither of them have been silly when dealing with patents in the past, unlike a certain fruity competitor......

Very true, they are a little more..."adult" shall we say about these arguments. I like seeing that and the whole "this battle is going to wipe out money with appeals and wasted time on lawyers so lets work together to make something better".

Mmm, yes the fruity people who believe they should be able to patent the "curvature and ergonomics" of a device.

[crossy]

I think this is less about friendship and more about the realisation that it is a complete waste of time, resources and money for all involved.

Yep, something that "Fruit Corp" still have to realise "accommodation not aggravation". Being seen as the whiny child who goes running to a friendly (Texas?) court all the time isn't good for your image. And in the case of Microsoft/Google I'm pretty sure that there's quite a lot of scope for "compromise" to the benefit of both. Far better PR to be able to claim - for example - that Word/Excel fully support Google Drive storage and maybe a native YouTube app for Windows Phone.

Nadella's move is to remind everyone that Microsoft is a "Devices and Services" company.

I'd quietly suggest "Software and Services" - thought Surface/Lumia was just a play against iPad/iPhone (and their Android equivalents). Surely what MS wants is a nice slab o' business services money topped off with domestic Office365 subscriptions. For proof look at how hard Microsoft is trying to push .Net etc as highly cross platform, and now extending that to MUI/Metro apps plus associated dev tools.