The Android patent controversy is far from over, and Microsoft continues to make headway in intellectual property deals with Android OEM’s. The latest deals being with Acer and ViewSonic.

“We are pleased that Acer is taking advantage of our industrywide [sic] licensing program established to help companies address Android’s IP issues,” said Horacio Gutierrez – who is the corporate VP and deputy general counsel of Intellectual Property and Licensing at Microsoft. “This agreement is an example of how industry leaders can reach commercially reasonable arrangements that address intellectual property.”

The licensing deal gives “broad coverage” under Microsoft’s patent portfolio for Acer’s smartphones and tablets running Android, while ViewSonic gets coverage for their smartphones and tablets running Android and Chrome OS.
No specific details such as how much Microsoft will be getting were disclosed, but the ViewSonic press release did say: “the parties indicate that Microsoft will receive royalties from ViewSonic under the agreement.”
The Acer press release did not mention any such thing, so Microsoft could have obtained some rights to Acer’s patent portfolio as well – but that’s just my guess.

Microsoft has made similar deals in the past with companies such as HTC over their Android powered phones. It is rumored that Microsoft makes about $5 per HTC device running Android, and it appears that Microsoft makes more money off of Android than their own Windows Phone 7 platform.

If you haven’t taken a look at one of Ed Bott’s most recent articles about Oracle vs. Google lawsuit, you might want to. Ed details some information in regards to the Android source code which Google fought to keep confidential, but they lost that battle and they will be used in court as evidence that Google knowingly copied Sun’s Java code.

Yahoo! Search has gained 0.2 percentage points (from 15.9% to 16.1%) search market share for the month of July 2011, but Google dropped 0.4 percentage points (from 65.5% down to 65.1%) during the same time period according to the latest data from comScore. However Bing remained stagnant at 14.4%.

This means that Bing now commands 30.5% of the search market, compared to Google’s 65.1%.

If you are wondering where the rest of of 0.2 percentage points went, 0.1 went to AOL – but the remaining 0.1 must have been lost to a rounding error.

While Google may have lost some market share – again – they didn’t lose in overall search volume. In this case Google gained 2% in overall search volume (going from 10.948 billion to 11.158 billion), along with Yahoo! gaining 4% (2.65 billion to 2.764 billion) and Bing gaining 3% in search volume (2.405 billion to 2.473 billion).

Nielson has discovered that Android’s market share in the U.S. stagnated last month, according to Slareng. Google’s Android operating system lost one percentage point last month, going from 37% to 36%. While this is not a significant drop by a long shot, it does show that the interest in Android has waned ever so slightly.

iPhone saw a one percentage drop (down to 26%), while BlackBerry saw a one percentage point increase (to 23%). It is no surprise that Windows Phone 7 only saw a market share of a mere 1%, along with the no longer used Palm OS. HP’s webOS captures 2% of the U.S. market.

Nielson also tracked data usage by smartphone operating system on average, and they found Android used the most at 582MB. This was followed by iOS at 492MB on average, then webOS at 448MB, and Windows Phone 7 at 317MB. Windows Mobile phones only use 174MB on average, with BlackBerry last with only 127MB per phone.

Nielson also found that Android and iOS users were more likely to download apps, at 74 and 79%, respectively. 63% of Windows Phone 7 users download apps when they are out and about, followed by webOS at 52%.

Yesterday Google announced Chromebooks at Google I/O, these notebooks use Chrome OS and will offer “Chrome’s speed, simplicity and security without the headaches of operating systems designed 20 to 30 years ago.” Google says you will be up and running in a matter of seconds, not minutes like some computers.

Just as Chrome does, Chrome OS will update automatically which will make your computer “faster over time.” No longer will you have to worry about having your computer stolen, or forgetting to back up your files, and with Chrome OS having multiple layers of security built-in there is no need to worry about antivirus software. Battery life will be superb as well, offering a full day of use without needing to “carry a power cord everywhere.” Chromebook users can also sign up for optional 3G service, enabling access to the Internet where ever you go.

At the core of each Chromebook is the Chrome web browser. The web has millions of applications and billions of users. Trying a new application or sharing it with friends is as easy as clicking a link. A world of information can be searched instantly and developers can embed and mash-up applications to create new products and services. The web is on just about every computing device made, from phones to TVs, and has the broadest reach of any platform. With HTML5 and other open standards, web applications will soon be able to do anything traditional applications can do, and more.

Chromebooks will become available on June 15 in the US, UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, Italy and Spain. These notebooks can be purchased from Amazon and Best Buy in the US for around $400 (Samsung models, at least).

The most interesting part is that students will be able to rent Chromebooks for $20/month, and businesses can do so for $28/month. Keep in mind these rentals require a 3-year contract, which will amount to $720 in total for students and $1,008 in total for businesses. However, “[a]lso included is enterprise-level support, device warranties and replacements as well as regular hardware refreshes.” Along with the warranties, support, and refreshes, enterprises will be able to manage these devices via cloud management to “remotely administer and manage users, devices, applications and policies.”

Watch out, Microsoft. You have some competition coming, and coming fast.

It’s that time of the month again, and comScore has revealed their search engine market share data, showing that once again, Bing-powered search grew and Google dropped. Hitwise has yet to release their latest search market share data as of yet.

For the month of March 2011, comScore reports that Google had a market share of 65.7%, Yahoo! with 15.7%, Bing with 13.9%. That meant together Bing powered searches accounted for 29.6% of the search market. comScore’s data indicated that for March 2011 Yahoo! searches dropped by 0.4 percentage points, with Bing gaining 0.3, causing a net loss of 0.1 percentage points for the two combined.

This month both explicit searches on Yahoo! and Bing grew, with Yahoo! at 15.9% (up by 0.2 percentage points) and Bing at 14.1% (up by 0.2 percentage points), giving the duo a combined market share of 30%.

Google, on the other hand, dropped by 0.3 percentage points down to 65.4%. Ask.com’s market share fell by 0.1 percentage points (to 3%), as did Aol’s (1.5%).

It appears as though Bing is continuing to gain on Google in the U.S. market, but it is unlikely Microsoft is making much headway in other parts of the world.

As soon as Hitwise reports their monthly market share results, I will be sure to post them as Hitwise includes a success rate (percentage of searches which require no refinement to find what users were looking for), which comScore does not.