Microsoft announced on Wednesday via a blog post that it has made strategic agreements with device partners in order to increase the bandwidth of products with its services on-board.
The Redmond giant has, for a long time, had aims to bring an array of its services to every person on every device. And to achieve this, it has conbeen striking up partnerships and agreements with major manufacturers in the market. Last year, we saw the company sign a slew of agreements with OEMs across the globe.
The company had made deals with as many as 20 companies including market leaders like Sony and LG which would sell out their tablets pre-installed with Microsoft Office Apps. This number gradually saw an increase and by the end of a few months, the tech giant had deals with 31 global and local OEMs and top original device manufacturer partners to pre-install Microsoft Office, OneDrive and Skype on Android tablets.
Microsoft has also made Office and Skype services more flexible, including web support, cross-platform support and much more in order to reach as many users as possible. The software giant acquired many renowned companies in order to make its vision a reality.
The software giant has now announced that it has signed agreements with 74 hardware partners in 25 countries that will now provide pre-installed Microsoft services on their devices. The services that Microsoft is offering pre-installed are Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, OneDrive and Skype. The availability of the services is subject to the manufacturer and may vary from device to device.
Our strategic agreements with these partners, in which IP alignment is an important feature, demonstrate how Microsoft is leveraging the scale of the hardware ecosystem, and working with partners in new ways to deliver rich experiences to our customers. This is a cornerstone of our broad services strategy, to bring an array of Microsoft services to every person on every device.
By pre-installing Microsoft software and services on Android tablets and phones, our partners are able to increase the value of those devices by delivering the rich productivity experiences customers want. In addition, partners will be able to take advantage of opportunities to realize new revenue streams.
Microsoft’s very own mobile platform, Lumia, which it acquired from Nokia in 2014, is seeing drastic reduction in market shares for a while now, which could well be the reason behind the Redmond giant trying to leave its footprints on every other alternative mobile ecosystem.
Microsoft’s Lumia line accounts for just about 1 percent of the total phones sold during the previous quarter. Sales had dropped by 57 percent when compared to the same time frame in 2014. While that might be bad news for the tech giant, it seems that the company wishes to promote its services over the more popular Android platform.
Also, Office is one of the most essential services for anyone, anywhere. And with the new updates rolling out for the apps like wildfire, it is unsurprising that Microsoft wants more users to gain access to its services. The continuously rolling further dates of the release for Windows 10 Mobile aren’t helping either.
The company also partnered up with Cyanogen Inc. recently which could just be its attempt to make its apps and services more visible.
