Microsoft and Xiaomi’s New ‘Long-Term Partnership’

Microsoft sold 1,500 patents and cross-licenses to Xiaomi, a renowned tech giant in China. According to the announcement, it is a step forward to establish a long-term partnership.

“We are excited to be working closely with Microsoft on a broad technology collaboration partnership,” said Xiang Wang, senior vice president at Xiaomi. “As demonstrated by this agreement with Microsoft, Xiaomi is looking to build sustainable, long-term partnerships with global technology leaders, with the ultimate goal of bringing the best user experience to our Mi fans.”

Xiaomi will be releasing units in September 2016 with pre-installed renowned Microsoft software and application such as Skype, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook and Excel. These offerings will depend on the unit’s specifications, market and mobile operator.

Xiaomi has also launched a tablet that runs Microsoft Windows 10 and Azure will power the Mi Cloud.

According to analysts, Xiaomi’s growth in the industry is hampered by not acquiring established patents.

Xiaomi has been facing depreciations on their sales and shipments, about 9% year-on-year in China during the first quarter, based on a report released by Strategy Analytics. Its market share dipped to 12 percent from 13 percent. All these were because of the tight industry competition. A well-known competitor of the brand is Huawei. Additionally, smaller manufacturers such as Oppo and Vivo were also making through the industry.

Microsoft has recently sold the remaining Nokia ownership to two new companies and lay-off about 1800 workers. The company has also cut licensing deals with many Android device makers over the years. Now, a partnership with a Beijing-based company. Is it because Microsoft is not throwing their dream away and would still like to be one of the giants in the mobile industry?