Now that they've stopped suing each other, the relationship between Microsoft and Samsung appears to be blossoming. The newly released Samsung Galaxy S6 has a Microsoft Apps folder that contains apps like OneDrive, OneNote and Skype.
Additionally, the companies have announced that new Samsung tablets will come bundled with Microsoft Office. Microsoft has also announced that it has a similar agreement with Dell and nine other smaller manufacturers.
Microsoft and Samsung announced that Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, OneDrive and Skype will be available on "select Android tablets" from Samsung that are to be released in the first half of 2015. Microsoft Office 365 is also to be offered to businesses using Samsung devices free of charge.
In a follow-up blog, Microsoft's head of business development, Peggy Johnson, revealed that the company has reached similar agreements with Dell and nine other regional OEMs, or original equipment manufacturers.
"These 11 hardware partners will preinstall Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, OneDrive and Skype on Android devices coming to market later this year," she wrote.
The other nine manufacturers are TrekStor of Germany, JP Sa Couto of Portugal, Datamatic of Italy, DEXP of Russia, Hipstreet of Canada, QMobile of Pakistan, Tecno of Africa, Casper of Turkey and Pegatron.
"Our partnership with Samsung is emblematic of our efforts to bring the best of Microsoft's productivity services to everyone, on every device, so people can be productive wherever, however and whenever they want," said Peggy Johnson.
The announcements come just more than a month after Samsung and Microsoft settled a long-running court case over Android patent licensing royalties.
The Samsung statement also says that the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge will come with an additional 100 GB of storage for two years on OneDrive, Microsoft's cloud storage platform. As part of the partnership, companies that purchase devices through Samsung's business-to-business channels will get access to premium versions of Microsoft Office 365. The devices also come with the Samsung Knox security system, which allows users to easily switch between personal and professional profiles on the same devices. There is no mention of a similar deal with Dell and the other regional OEMs.
It's a positive move for Microsoft in the mobile marketplace, where cloud-based office suites like Google Docs, which are free with all Android devices, are more widely used than Microsoft's equivalent. However, with Office apps already preinstalled, users are more likely to use the software that they've been used to operating on their computers.
