Report of Free Windows Mobile 6 Licenses an Oversimplification

Last week, it was reported by several web sites that Microsoft is not going to charge a license fee to companies who want to issue Windows Mobile 6 upgrades for current devices.

According to a Microsoft spokesperson, this is not exactly true.

Although the company is flexible about licensing fees in certain situations, it has not made a blanket offer of free Windows Mobile 6 upgrades for current models.

Licensing Fees? What Are Those?

After spending the time and money developing Windows Mobile, Microsoft re-coups its expenses by charging the companies that license this operating system a fee for each device that ships.

When a new version of Windows Mobile is introduced, companies that want to offer upgrades to their customers must pay Microsoft a license fee for each copy of the upgraded operating system.

Last week's report indicated that Microsoft was going to waive the fee for devices that were being upgraded from Windows Mobile 5 to the latest version, but, as mentioned earlier, this is not true.

In case there's any confusion, there was never any suggestion that Microsoft was going to offer Windows Mobile 6 for free for new handhelds or smartphones.

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