Terry Gou accuses Microsoft of ‘scapegoating’ iPhone assembler Hon Hai, bullying Taiwanese companies and taking advantage of US-China trade war
- Microsoft sued Hon Hai for missing royalty payments in California last week
- Gou assured shareholders that the company will ‘almost not suffer’ any loss from the lawsuit
Billionaire Terry Gou Tai-ming accused Microsoft of being a coward and a bully after the US software giant took legal action against his company, electronics contract manufacturer Hon Hai Precision Industry, for allegedly failing to comply with a patent-licensing agreement.
Microsoft on Friday slapped Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group, with a lawsuit in California for failing to make royalty payments on time.
The lawsuit claims Taiwan-based Hon Hai, which is Apple’s main assembler of iPhones, was supposed to file regular royalty reports to Microsoft, providing specific information about the manufacturer’s sales of covered products on a per-unit basis. That was designed to make certain per-device royalty payments to Microsoft for the license term.
Gou, the founder and chairman of Hon Hai, held a press briefing on Tuesday in Taipei, where he railed at the Nasdaq-listed Microsoft, which is led by chief executive Satya Nadella. As a contract manufacturer, Hon Hai has never been required to pay royalties for the software, according to Gou.
“I have my sympathies for Microsoft,” he said. “It is resting on its laurels and trying to extend its hegemony from the PC era.”
Hon Hai has become the “scapegoat”, he said, without referring to who he thinks the real target is.