Microsoft gives Windows phone OS free to Indian phone makers Lava and Karbonn

With Android and iOS ruling over the Indian smartphone scene, Windows phone OS is finding it a tad bit difficult to penetrate the market as heavily as it would like to. Resorting to desperate measures, Microsoft has decided to waive off license fees for some local Indian vendors.

According to a report in the Times of India, Microsoft has decided to waive off license fees for two companies - Lava and Karbonn - and are offering it to them for free.

It was clear at the Mobile World Congress that Microsoft was looking at other Indian smartphone vendors to use their Windows OS and had also announced that the OS will be available at a lower rate for them.
Both the companies are rumoured to be releasing their Windows phone in the next couple of months.

It is interesting to note that Microsoft had initially not given the OS to Nokia for free. Microsoft’s ambitions to see its operating system flourish clearly did not see the light of the day and hence this step might have been taken to boost Indian market presence.

With Microsoft acquiring Nokia, the first user of the Windows OS, recently it only remains to be seen what the future phones of Nokia will be like. Nokia recently also launched Nokia X, their first Android phone in India.

Android, unlike Windows, is a free to use Google OS. Samsung, Sony, LG and many others big brands are focused on Android as it’s widely acceptable across the country. Maybe Microsoft thought that the ‘free’ card could help them get this acceptability and they initiated it through local vendors first, hopefully envisioning to branch out to bigger brands in the future.