the truth comes out
Neat how it's Microsoft that gets to extort Android manufacturers when they barely push any rectangles.
A new report claims Microsoft hasn't been offering Android device vendors any money to bundle its mobile apps on their phones and slabs; rather, it has offered to reduce the tolls it collects from the mobe-makers. Citing sources among supply chain players in China and Taiwan, DigiTimes Research says Redmond has offered to cut …
Just waiting till a safe root is produced that doesn't trip KNOX (or fixes it), and then I'll be jettisoning Microsoft's crapware from my phone. Honestly, If I wanted Microsoft's apps on my phone, I would install them myself. I don't ever plan to use them. For now, they have been disabled or hidden.
> Maybe Google should have worried a bit about patents before convincing all the equipment manufacturers to pile in to Android. If they had, Microsoft would not have this leverage.
It was the manufacturers, and their customers, that decided to 'pile in to Android', Google just made it available. For example Amazon, Barnes and Noble, many smaller companies and even Nokia made Android phones that avoid Google and use their own services.
Barnes & Noble challenged Microsoft over the 'patents' and got a $300,000 'investment' from MS, apparently because they did not want them tested in court. The main 'patent' is on FAT32 long filenames which runs out soon. If an SD card is included it seems that it is easier for the manufacturer to pay a couple of dollars.
For "new" android users moving from winphone or iOS this preloaded bloatware strategy makes sense, but established android users will likely end up importing all the apps/settings from another device during initial startup - along with whatever existing/established alternative to ms that they've been using for the many years prior to ms' lightbulb moment.
Unless the ms equivalents are actually "better" I can see those apps just wasting space/never being used.
*I use kingsoft/WPS office and IMHO it's vastly superior to the ms apps but YMMV.