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Microsoft, NEC Sign Patent Agreement

By the Betanews Staff | Published May 24, 2006, 12:20 PM

Microsoft and Japanese electronics giant NEC have inked an agreement to share patents and work together on corporate networking and server products. Microsoft is expected to provide software and business services that will be packaged with NEC's server hardware and routers.

"NEC has been the top share vendor in PCs in Japan for 25 years," commented Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at news conference. "It has also been the leader for the last 10 years consecutively in servers. We look forward to what we can do with their great technology in the future." Microsoft previously signed a cross-licensing patent agreement with Toshiba.

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May 24, 2006 - 8:00 PM

Software patents are bad. It is useful for MS to protect itself with cross-licensing agreements. But what about downstream users or freelance developers on the Microsoft plattform?

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