Microsoft and Xiaomi have today announced that they have struck a patent transfer and cross-licensing deal, alongside an application pre-install agreement that will see Redmond’s productivity application suite, including Office and Skype already installed on millions of Xiaomi smartphones and tablets staring this September.
Xiang Wang, the senior vice president at Xiaomi was ecstatic about the partnership and said that,
We are excited to be working closely with Microsoft on a broad technology collaboration partnership.
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.
What the Redmond-based tech giant believes is that people want their favorite experiences to come already packaged with their device, so that they can enjoy a seamless and productive experience. With this partnership, both the tech giants are aimed to bring the best in mobile productivity to the masses and explore geographies untapped by the Chinese manufacturer.
In the past, Microsoft has also worked out many other pre-install agreements with industry smartphone leaders, like Samsung. According to a similar patent and licensing deal signed with Samsung, the company’s office suite – including Excel, Word, Powerpoint and Skype have since then been pre-installed on Samsung devices, starting with the Galaxy S6.
This agreement seems beneficial for both parties, and will build upon the already healthy relations of the tech giants. Xiaomi is already in partnership with Microsoft to use Windows 10 on Mi Pads and uses the company’s extensive cloud architecture – Azure – to power its Mi Cloud.
After losing most of its smartphone business, Microsoft sees this as the only way to expand and leverage its services to global smartphone users. This will also particularly help Xiaomi reach out to uncharted geographical lands, after its successful feat in fast-growing nations, like India, China and Brazil.
