Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest smartphone-maker, said Tuesday it would reinforce its partnership with Microsoft to deliver the U.S. software giant’s mobile services.
The Seoul-based tech giant said that a wider range of MS mobile services would be available on its smartphones and tablet PCs in future.
As announced during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this month, some of Microsoft’s cloud-based productivity services, including OneNote and OneDrive, and Internet voice and video chat tool Skype will be pre-installed on Samsung’s upcoming marquee phones, the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge.
MS’ flagship Office Suite products ― Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint ― will be also available on some of Samsung’s Android tablets within the first half of this year.
“Our goal is to meet the ever-evolving needs of both consumers and business customers and give them more power to discover new mobile experiences,” said Lee Sang-chul, executive vice president of Samsung’s strategic marketing office.
“We believe our suite of premium mobile products coupled with Microsoft’s productivity services will offer users the mobility they need in both their personal and business lives.”
Samsung’s corporate customers will also have access to Microsoft’s Office 365, a bundle of cloud-based services tailored for businesses, along with Samsung’s KNOX security solution.
“By using Office 365 on Samsung devices, users will be able to deal with their daily business tasks including sending emails, managing schedules and video conferencing, efficiently,” an official from Samsung said.
Samsung said the KNOX mobile security solution would allow users to enhance security of their mobile devices so that they can use their personal gadgets for business purposes in a secure manner.
“Our partnership with Samsung is emblematic of our efforts to bring the best of Microsoft’s productivity services to everyone, on every device ― so that people can be productive wherever, however and whenever they want,” said Peggy Johnson, executive vice president of Microsoft’s business development division.
The collaboration came after the longtime partners settled a lawsuit over Samsung’s overdue interest on royalties for the use of Microsoft’s patents pertaining to the Android operating system in February.
Filing a lawsuit against Samsung last year, Microsoft had claimed that Samsung had not paid $6.9 million in interest for the use of the patents.
The meetings between Samsung Electronics vice chairman Lee Jay-yong and Satya Nadella, the chief executive of Microsoft, which took place at Samsung’s headquarters in Seoul in September, are said to have played a key role in the two firms reaching the settlement.
Market watchers see the latest collaboration between the two counterparts as a prelude of more to come, such as smartphones featuring Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating system.
