Smartphone maker Xiaomi has bought
the rights to hundreds of Microsoft's
smartphone inventions.

Experts say the patent deal paves the
way for the Chinese firm to sell its
handsets in Western markets.
Microsoft will benefit from the fact that
some of its Android apps - including Office
and Skype - will now be pre-installed on
Xiaomi devices.

The announcement comes at a time when
Xiaomi has been struggling to meet sales
targets.
The Beijing-based company originally set
itself a target of selling 100 million
smartphones in 2015.
But it managed to sell only 71 million,
partly because of increased competition
from domestic rivals.
Oppo and Vivo overtook Xiaomi in phone
shipments in the first three months of
2016, while Huawei extended its lead,
according to research firm IDC.
That pushed Xiaomi down to seventh place
in global market share. It had been ranked
third in 2014.
Biggest challenge
"The patent deal comes at a pretty
important time for Xiaomi, which has
topped out in the Chinese market," said
Ben Wood from consultancy CCS Insight.
"Intellectual property had been the biggest
challenge it faced in breaking out of its
active markets in Asia and Brazil. Having a
patent portfolio lets it defend itself against
rivals who would otherwise have sued."
Xiaomi gains nearly 1,500 patents as part
of the deal, including rights to
communications, video and cloud
technologies.

Microsoft has recently made moves to
scale back its handset operations, cutting
jobs in its smartphone division and selling
its Nokia-branded feature phone business.
However, under chief executive Satya
Nadella's leadership it has tried to
encourage use of its products on non-
Windows handsets.
Xiaomi already used Microsoft's Azure
platform to power its MiCloud service.
From September, it will also pre-load
Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and
Skype onto several of its devices including
the Mi 5 and Redmi Note 3.
"Microsoft doesn't have much interest in
being a mass market smartphone
manufacturer," said Mr Wood.
"In doing the patent deal with Xiaomi, it
gets an opportunity to get more users
engaged with its apps, and can attempt to
turn them into an ongoing revenue stream
via subscriptions and other fees.

Source: https://bbc.com/news/technology-36426135?iorg_service_id_internal=624173547714020%3BAfrSqR67rf1smzwU

Okay.

What is Xiaomi now trying to do with Microsoft?

What is Xiaomi now trying to do with Microsoft?

Reeberry:
What is Xiaomi now trying to do with Microsoft?

They want to expand sale for their phones by gaining deeper market penetration and shares.