Figures found by ZDNet suggest that thanks all the Android patent agreements, Microsoft may be making as much as $8 per Android device. This could give Microsoft as much as $3.4 billion in 2013 from Android sales. Patent trolling is proving very lucrative for Redmond. If vendors don't want to pay, Microsoft will threaten patent lawsuits and sometimes it will go to court.
Recently Microsoft has convinced Foxconn, Nikon, ZTE, and numerous other Android OEMs that it's cheaper to pay off Microsoft by acquiring a patent license than go through with it. Ironically the only one which does not pay Redmond has been Motorola Mobility which is a division of Google and Huawei.
The result is that Microsoft is driving up the prices of Android devices for consumers so that its own Windows offerings look competitive. It is no wonder that Apple has been trying to do the same thing. The only way that proprietary operating systems can compete against “free” ones is by making sure that they are not really free.
