14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft's multi-billion annual investments into Research and Development are truly paying off as the Redmond company gets to license its technology even to rival companies. The latest example in this respect is Google, as the Mountain View-based search giant has synced with Microsoft for innovation, licensing the Exchange ActiveSync protocol. The Google Sync Beta was in fact applauded by Microsoft as a success of its intellectual property portfolio.
“Google’s licensing of these Microsoft patents relating to the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync protocol is a clear acknowledgment of the innovation taking place at Microsoft,” explained Horacio Gutierrez, Deputy General Counsel and VP, Intellectual Property & Licensing, Microsoft. “This agreement is also a great example of Microsoft’s openness to generally license our patents under fair and reasonable terms so long as licensees respect Microsoft intellectual property. This open approach has been part of Microsoft’s IP licensing policy since 2003 and has resulted in over 500 licensing agreements of the last five years.”
On February 9, 2009, Google announced that the Google Sync Beta program went live, allowing iPhone, Windows Mobile as well as mobile phones with SyncML support, to synchronize contacts and calendar with Gmail Contacts and Google Calendar. At the same time, the process goes both ways, meaning that users will be able to make changes to their Gmail Contacts and Google Calendar via their mobile phones.
“Once you set up Sync on your phone, it will automatically begin synchronizing your address book and calendar in the background, over-the-air, so you can attend to other tasks. Sync uses push technology so any changes or additions to your calendar or contacts are reflected on your device in minutes. The connection is always on so you don't have to manually sync your phone after Sync has been set up. This means that when your colleague changes the time of the TPS report cover sheets meeting, you'll know about it right away,” stated Bryan Mawhinney, software engineer, Google Mobile.
Google Sync is based on Google’s implementation of the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync protocol on the Mountain View company's servers, the software giant stated, and the patent licensing agreement does not cover Android. In this manner Google is added to the roster of companies that have already licensed Exchange ActiveSync including Apple, Nokia, Palm, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson.