Microsoft Signs Licensing Deal with Research In Motion

To be honest, that headline is somewhat misleading. The first thing that should come to mind upon seeing such a thing is that Research in Motion (RIM) has decided to license Windows Phone 8 – which would be relatively big news – or that through some permutation in the space-time fabric and continuum, Microsoft might have opted to license Blackberry 10.

Either of these scenarios would be of interest, though neither of them would help RIM from either a technology or business standpoint.

In any case, the headline has nothing to do with either possibility.

All that has transpired is that Microsoft and RIM have signed a patent licensing agreement that will allow RIM to have full access to the latest version of Microsoft’s Extended File Allocation Table (exFAT).

FAT, of course, has been intimately related to Windows forever, so there isn’t much here in the way of generally exciting news.

The next iteration of FAT is exFAT, which allows for the creation of large files for audiovisual media. More importantly for RIM, it also enables seamless data portability between desktop PCs and a range of other electronic devices, some of which are smartphones and tablets.

Presumably, RIM will use the technology with its upcoming new BlackBerry 10 devices (upcoming, that is, sometime in 2013). The exFAT system improves on its predecessor by greatly expanding the size of files that flash memory devices can handle – by five times over previous versions of FAT. File access speed is also notably improved.

Microsoft notes that it offers flexible IP licensing programs that give companies access to many of the foundational technologies in its own products, allowing those companies to build devices, applications and services that work seamlessly with each other.

Microsoft says it has entered into similar licensing agreements with several leading consumer electronics manufacturers through the IP licensing program, including Panasonic, SANYO, Sony and Canon.

RIM has long been a severely wounded mobile player – one that failed to recognize what Apple had wrought back in 2007, and then failed repeatedly to come to grips with once it did. The one market area where RIM still has a hope and prayer of surviving is the enterprise market, and it is here that its new ability to build exFAT capabilities into BlackBerry 10 and its future mobile devices (including any new tablets) makes obvious sense.

At this point, RIM doesn’t appear to be in a position to license its own BlackBerry 10 technology to any company. Samsung should be keenly interested in doing so, but to date it has stayed away. Adding BlackBerry 10 – and even more so an exFAT-capable BlackBerry 10 – to its product line would give Samsung a huge enterprise boost, especially in the only enterprise market that really matters – the US market.

In the meantime, RIM clearly needs to deliver strong enterprise products going forward. Without them it will remain a forlorn also-ran. The exFAT capability is but a small step – the new devices, whenever they arrive, need to present their own physical WOW factor. We hope they do.

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