Microsoft to give OS free to phone manufacturers: Reports

After reports last month suggesting that Microsoft was looking to cut license fees to sign up more manufactures, especially local manufacturers in growth markets such as India, the company now has agreed to give provide its OS without licence fees, The Times of India reported citing sources from Indian phone companies.

This news comes following Lava, Karbonn and Micromax having discussions with the software giant to launch low-cost devices.

Lava and Karbonn, last month announced plans to produce Windows Phone devices. Xolo too was looking at Windows Phone and had already come out with plans for a Windows tablet. Microsoft had been making headway with Indian companies and though the Satya Nadella connection must have weighed, the report said, adding, ''the agreements were clinched only when Microsoft agreed to remove the licence fee.''

The newspaper quoted an executive with an Indian phone company as saying that free Windows Phone was part of a strategic partnership. He added, for both Microsoft and the manufacturers, it was an experiment. He said, Windows Phone still did not have a lot of appeal in the market but now that it had no licence fee, it became easier for handst makers experiment with it.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has announced that the final patch for the Windows XP operating system would be coming soon and has been urging users through popup notifications to upgrade to a newer platform. The company's latest attempt to get users on to a newer platform comes as an infograph which basically highlights all the reasons why one should upgrade ASAP.

Microsoft had stated that Windows XP would no longer have customer support due to the fact that the platform was now 12 years old. The company also stated that Windows XP computers were more prone to infection than those running on Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8.

The infograph also lists financial reasons for businesses, claiming that it was actually more expensive to maintain an out-of-date operating system as against upgrading to something newer. According to commentators there were many reasons why some people were holding out against upgrading.

They point out that for users who just needed to check emails and surf the web, the familiarity of Windows XP was a factor in their choice of sticking with the older version of the software.