Quanta signs up as Microsoft's latest Android/Chrome licensee
Microsoft has announced that Taiwan-based Quanta Computer Inc has become the latest company to sign up to pay patent royalties to Microsoft for Android- and Chrome-based tablets and smartphones. Terms of the agreement have, as usual, not been disclosed, which, as Quanta makes devices for other companies, makes it unclear whether the Microsoft/Quanta deal would provide coverage for Quanta's customers. That customer list is rumoured to include Amazon for whom they build the Amazon Fire tablet.
Quanta was founded in 1988 and has produced devices for Apple, Compaq, Dell, HP, Sony, Lenovo, Sun and many others. It also helped manufacture the One Laptop Per Child XO-1 laptop. Quanta follows Samsung, Acer and Viewsonic, Wistron, Onkyo, General Dynamics Itronix and Velocity Micro who have all done patent deals. In March, Microsoft took Barnes and Noble, FoxConn and Inventec to court for allegedly infringing a number of Microsoft patents in the Nook e-readers.
(djwm)