Sharp enters into licencing agreement with Microsoft to use exFAT in Android Devices

And the billion dollar question is….. Who makes the most money off Android. It certainly isn’t Google. Microsoft makes a killing in licensing agreements to manufacturers who build and sell Android products. One report we read said Microsoft pulls in $444 million annually from Android patent licensing. One such license they hold is their exFAT file system. All you techies out there know what that is. To the less techy individual, exFAT stands for Extended File Allocation Table. Another fancy name for a format of memory for your device. In a nutshell, it handles files over 4GB and can increase the maximum file size a device can actually handle by about 5 times.

Microsoft says: “exFAT is a modern file system that facilitates large files for audiovisual media and enables seamless data portability for an easy interchange of files between desktop PCs and other electronic devices.It also greatly increases the speed with which those files can be accessed. This agreement allows Sharp to continue to stay ahead of the curve and give people around the world entertainment and productivity experiences that truly fit their lifestyles.”

So toss another big name manufacturer into the Microsoft royalty bank account. While Sharp isn’t huge here in the U.S., they do make up 17.5 percent market share overseas in Japan. Getting a licensing deal to use exFAT will cost much less than getting sued for it later.

Source: Fonearena