Microsoft sells patents to Xiaomi

[pawadu]

I think in 2-4 years, xiaomi will be a market leader. I believe this for three reasons:

1. the Chineese government got their backs. (e.g. foreign competitors have been forced to agree to not sue these guys to get their mergers approved)

2. they make long term strategic decisions. xiaomi is owned by the employees and don't have any short-sighted shareholders to please

3. their engineering and manufacturing teams have a very efficient iterative workflow. many other companies ship a product and move on to the next but xiaomi updates and improves their products every four weeks (eight ?).

[li-ch]

No they will not.

1. Chinese Gov has Huawei's back, not Xiaomi.

2. Their decision to make their OS to show crazy amount of ads is really short sighted.

3. They are falling dangerously behind Huawei in both sales and quality of product.

[ci5er]

> 2. they make long term strategic decisions. xiaomi is owned by the employees and don't have any short-sighted shareholders to please

How is it "owned by the employees" when the founder owns 3/4 of the stock? Do you mean "private"?

[justicezyx]

1. Not true at all. 2. Exactly the opposite. 3. Their software department is decent but falling behind; their hardware depart is quite weak.

[Aissen]

So, Xiaomi is getting the last pieces it needs to move into European markets. If it comes here (which has begun already), it has to play the patent game. Expect a $60+ markup on high end phones for that (industry sources).

(old source: http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/400-smartphone-pay-120-p...)

Now they just need to solve their cash flow issues to fuel this growth…

[ocean3]

Lower end mobiles don't need to pay? There are many mobiles under 60 at least in India.

[nitin_flanker]

Acquisition of patent is one of the top priority of Xiaomi at this stage when it's trying to expand itself globally. I believe Hugo Barra is doing an excellent work here. The acquisition of Microsoft patent gonna open the door of the US smartphone market for Xiaomi. As per this report -- http://www.greyb.com/patent-portfolio-analysis-of-xiaomi-glo... -- one of the biggest hurdle is Xaiomi's miniscule patent portfolio in the US. In the past they acquired patents from Broadcom in the US. Still they had only 220 patents there and now with these 1500, they are going to have like 1700.

[ptaipale]

It is kind of sad that the power of innovation is not really in making something that is new and customers want to buy; even entering the market means you need to possess a portfolio where you count the patents by hundreds or thousands, and then you hire lawyers to negotiate a balance scale where each side throws a portfolio in the cup.

[neves]

Would this break the New World Order?

This is really interesting, maybe this will set a precedent for the creation of tech companies in the developing world. The Developed World have a clear plan: they will own all the "intellectual property" and use the cheap work in developing countries. It is not a problem if the same company produces all brands of printers. If it starts to sell a print itself, it will be sued to death.

The world is completely ordered: high value jobs for the rich, low value for the poor. We don't need brute force imperialism anymore.

If Xiaomi builds a rift in this structure, it may pave a way for other companies/countries around the world.

[seanmcdirmid]

Wait, how is this worse than developing country steals IP for domestic market, can't sell abroad in countries where IP matters? China can and does appropriate IP as needed, this is basically xiaomi's modus operandi. It stops working when developing country company wants to make money in developed market where IP is owned, which I guess is what they want with the patent portfolio.

China in general has said "we don't care" about IP rights, it is only changing now because (a) they are beginning to have their own IP to protect, (b) it is a race to the bottom between local companies when NO IP is protected, and (c) you will get sued to death on products sold in developed markets that are questionable in IP usage.

High value jobs for the rich, low value jobs for the poor. Sounds like China, the USA, and the rest of the world. Do not treat China as one homogenous pile of poor workers.

[asadlionpk]

As a resident of developing world, this is depressing.

[babayega2]

in Africa most of the mobile phones sold here are from huawei, xiaomi and other Chinese companies. And you find them cheaper and with most of the features a high end smartphone have as.

[ominous]

Such as unlocked bootloaders, exposed filesystem and root access?

[aavotins]

I have been eyeing Xiaomi for some time and even bought some of their products. And I was not disappointed. Something tells me that it's going to be the next Samsung.

[kyriakos]

I did buy two Xiaomi phones for members of my family. They are really good for the price when compared to more mainstream brands. They also have strong community support and both models I tried have unofficial Cyanogenmod firmware. To be honest though other than the possible "spying" from the Chinese ROMs, Xiaomi's MIUI is beautiful, well thought, and gets updated every week.

[mtgx]

But, you know, with more backdoors.

[ksec]

It is one way to equip itself with patents for International Market. It is also worth mentioning Xiaomi, should they decide to enter US market, will cost a little more due to 4G licensing cost.

And Microsoft will get Office into the hands of million Xiaomi users.

[neves]

Phone manufacturers have to pay 4G licensing?

[kennell]

I own two Xiaomi phones, the Redmi 3 and the Mi 4C. I imported both directly from China for <$200 each. The hardware feels just like a $600-700 flagship phone from a big brand, including Apple. I had to do some fiddling to get a perfect english language ROM with the Playstore and without chinese bloatapps, but now i am very happy with it. Quite frankly, i see no reason to ever pick up a big brand phone again.

Of course if they enter western markets, the prices will go up (US/european regulations, warranty law, license costs etc.), but if that price bump stays reasonable... some of the big boys are in trouble.

[Negative1]

When you say imported, do you mean you literally paid import fees in addition to just the shipping cost? If so, how much was that?

[techmicrobiz]

I wonder if this move by Microsoft signals that the rumored Surface Phone will be made by Xiaomi and to be potentially co-branded with Xiaomi?

[yread]

Anybody wants to speculate on price?

[rasz_pl]

I would guess around 1 Billion dollars ... worth of patents given away by Microsoft as an 'investment' in Xiaomi. Just like Intel was forced to a 1.5B 'deal' last year.

There is a LOT of talk about anticompetitive practices by Microsoft lately, this usually results in such pseudo investment/partnership with native chinese company, or $1B anti competitive fine like the one Qualcomm received. Apple is also on a short list of getting fined/kicked hard.

[jonathankoren]

The top-end Xiaomi Max retails at 1999 RMB which is 303 USD.

[tonymm]

Ready to enter US market.

[samwestdev]

I'd love a Xiaomi with vanilla android

[greatergoodguy]

I agree. I imported the Xiaomi Mi Note Pro and the hardware is fantastic. I bought it when it was already 8 months old so it dropped in price from $500 to $350. Adding a $20 import fee and the total was $370. It comes with 64 GBs storage, 4 GBs ram, and a quad hd display (2560x1440).

Some things that are lame. No fingerprint sensor and no NFC.

[kennell]

I agree. MIUI isn't bad at all, but it feels like a waste of engineering resources developing and supporting your own little Android flavour when the majority of people enjoy a vanilla Android.

[happywolf]

Remember Nokia.

[ben1009]

流氓会武术