Advertisement
Promo

Enterprise applications Toolkit

Europe gets Microsoft technology licensing boost

Alorie Gilbert CNET News

Published: 31 Jan 2006 09:50 GMT

  • Email
  • Trackback
  • Clip Link
  • Print friendly
  • Post Comment

Microsoft is stepping up efforts to license technologies from its research efforts to entrepreneurs and small businesses.

The company is marketing a special portfolio of intellectual property to economic development agencies in Europe and Asia as a tool to support local start-ups, Microsoft said on Monday. So far it's signed up Enterprise Ireland and The Finnish National Fund for Research and Development.

"Microsoft is an intellectual-property company," Brad Smith, Microsoft senior vice-president and general counsel, said in a statement. "By extending the reach of IP Ventures through government agencies, we believe new businesses will bring more technology to market faster, and they'll also contribute back to local economies."

Microsoft launched the licensing programme, called IP Ventures, in May. With a focus on small businesses, the six-person programme was a shift for the company, which had focused much of its intellectual-property licensing effort on larger firms.

In addition to new agreements with government agencies, Microsoft has nearly doubled the number of technologies it licenses through the programme. Among the new technologies the company is offering are an image-editing program that lets users manipulate and move objects in pictures and photographs, a system for assembling high-bandwidth Internet connections from mobile phone signals and touch-screen displays that use cheap, acrylic plastic.

The company also licenses the technology directly to venture capital firms and small businesses.

  • Email
  • Trackback
  • Clip Link
  • Print friendlyPrint with EPSON

Did you find this article useful?
51 out of 187 people found this useful


Full Talkback thread

0 comments

Company/Topic Alerts

Create a new alert from the list below:






Video icon

Video

Microsoft Futures Special Report

Ozzie: Success of Azure comes down to trust

Ozzie: Success of Azure comes down to trust

News In an interview, Ray Ozzie says businesses will be taking a risk by placing core operations in Microsoft's datacentre, but that the software giant has more to lose if things go bad

More Special Reports


Skip Sub Navigation Links to CNET Brand Links

Help

Become part of the ZDNet community.

Newsletters