小米和微軟（Microsoft）宣布結成合作伙伴關系，這意味著兩家公司表現不佳的智能手機業務也許將迎來新的前景。

從今年9月開始，小米的智能手機中將預裝微軟的Office和Skype應用，而小米也從這家位于華盛頓州雷德蒙德的巨頭那里獲得一些迫切需要的專利。兩家公司于上周三上午在北京簽訂了這份交叉授權和轉讓專利的協議。小米表示，此舉讓公司與全球領先的科技企業實現了合作。與此同時，微軟也獲得了提供服務的新平臺。

達成協議的這兩家公司都不是強勢方。微軟在智能手機市場幾乎已經出局。IDC表示，微軟的移動操作系統的全球市場占有率在去年已經跌至不足2%。而小米也失去了曾經迅猛發展的勢頭。

對志在成為全球消費品牌的小米而言，這次的合作十分重要。Counterpoint Research的數據顯示，小米智能手機的銷售額在今年第一季度的同比增長已經下滑至不足9%，而他們去年的漲幅約為23%。這樣的增長率，只比規模大得多的蘋果（Apple）高出一點。相比之下，2015年小米共售出了7,100萬部智能手機，而蘋果售出了2.31億部iPhone。一年多以前，小米的智能手機還在全球市場占有率上名列第三，而如今他們已經跌出了前五。

小米的智能手機在質量上無法與蘋果的產品媲美，也越來越比不上中國的華為。如今公司的銷量增長主要來源于在印度、巴西和中國銷售的廉價機型。所以，正如《財富》雜志本月報告顯示的那樣，小米去年的總收入比起前年幾乎沒有增長。

通過合作獲得的微軟的知識產權，對小米必然大有助益。這家智能手機廠商只有五年歷史，缺乏知識產權情有可原。分析師指出，由于小米缺乏知識產權，直到去年年底，他們才在智能手機中安裝指紋傳感器，是中國主要的智能手機廠商中最晚的一家。知識產權的匱乏也讓小米在進入發達國家市場上非常謹慎，因為在那里遭遇訴訟的風險很高。

但僅僅有了專利，還不足以讓小米成功進軍美國或歐洲。

小米的核心商業模式是在網上以零利潤或幾乎沒有利潤的低價銷售手機，借此吸引用戶在他們的服務上消費。這一點很難在中國之外的地區復制。例如，美國的消費者更喜歡在實體店購買手機。在印度，小米也轉投實體店銷售的模式。此外，小米的服務提供范圍僅限于中國。他們現在的操作系統構建于谷歌（Google）的安卓平臺上。因為谷歌的服務被中國屏蔽，所以谷歌允許小米在該國使用自己的服務。但在中國之外，小米手機捆綁的是谷歌的應用商店和其他服務。

小米的國際業務拓展部門主管雨果?巴拉和其他高管稱，小米是一家互聯網公司，而不是手機廠商。他們表示，這是因為在中國，小米在音樂、視頻和游戲上的每用戶收入正在迅速增長，盡管其基數很低。

然而，智能手機銷售額的增長依舊是小米業務的關鍵。智能手機的銷售額也能推動公司在音樂和視頻等服務上進行投資。蘋果的分析師托尼?薩克納西指出，蘋果自身的服務與智能手機的銷量增長息息相關。用戶如果購買了新手機，就會順帶著購買新服務，如果他們使用老款手機，購買的服務就會相對較少。小米面臨著同樣的困境。

小米的希望在于，微軟可以讓他們的智能手機擁有更高的立足點。Counterpoint Research印度區主管尼爾?沙哈表示：“小米可能以特價購得了受保護的知識產權。但是作為回報，微軟也得到了小米這樣一位認真的合作伙伴，用于推廣他們自身的生態系統?！?

與此同時，微軟最近在智能手機領域也頗不順利。上周，微軟表示他們裁掉了超過1,800名員工，將其智能手機業務的價值減記了9.5億美元。分析師指出，再加上其他削減的規模，微軟為2014年轟動一時的收購諾基亞（Nokia）之舉，已經付出了共計超過72億美元的代價。微軟的智能手機操作系統的市場占有率也萎縮到僅剩幾個百分點。

兩家公司將如何進行合作，觀察家們需要拭目以待。不過客觀地說，我們沒有過分樂觀的理由。 （財富中文網）

譯者：嚴匡正

A just-announced partnership between Xiaomi and Microsoft represents a potentially promising collaboration between two struggling smartphone businesses.

Starting in September, Xiaomi’s smartphones will ship with Microsoft’s Office apps and Skype, while Xiaomi will receive some much needed patents from the Redmond, Wash., giant. Xiaomi said the cross-license and patent-transfer agreement, which the two companies announced last Wednesday morning in China, helps it meet its goal of building relationships with global tech leaders. Microsoft, meanwhile, gets a new platform for its services.

Neither company is approaching this deal from a place of strength. Microsoft is all but irrelevant in smartphones—the global market share for its mobile operating system dropped below 2% last year, says IDC— while Xiaomi’s once ascendant path has stalled.

The deal is most important for Xiaomi’s ambitions of becoming a global consumer brand. Xiaomi’s smartphone growth was down 9% year-over-year in the first quarter, according to Counterpoint Research, while growth last year was around 23%, just a hair better than much bigger Apple. For comparison: Xiaomi sold 71 million smartphones in 2015; Apple sold 232 million iPhones. Xiaomi, which a little over a year ago enjoyed the third largest global market share for smartphones, has fallen outside the top 5.

Xiaomi’s smartphones haven’t been able to match the quality of Apple’s or, increasingly, Huawei’s in China, and growth is now coming from lower-priced models it sells, in India, Brazil and China. That explains why Xiaomi’s total revenues were nearly flat last year compared with the year before, as Fortune reported this month.

The deal for Microsoft’s intellectual property is bound to help Xiaomi, which understandably suffers from an IP deficit, being a five-year-old smartphone maker. Because of this deficit, analysts note, Xiaomi was the last of the major Chinese smartphone makers to add a fingerprint sensor to its phones late last year. IP weaknesses have also made Xiaomi wary of entering developed markets where litigation risk is high.

But patents alone won’t help Xiaomi successfully expand in the U.S. or Europe.

Xiaomi’s core business model—selling phones online at cutthroat prices for no margin, or nearly no margin, in hopes of attracting users to spend on its services—is difficult to replicate outside China. Shoppers in the U.S., for instance, prefer to buy phones in stores. In India, Xiaomi has turned to brick-and-mortar partners. Moreover, Xiaomi’s services aren’t offered anywhere outside China. Its current operating system is built off of Google’s Android platform. Since Google’s services are blocked inside China, Google allows Xiaomi to offer its services in place of Google’s inside that country. But outside of China, Xiaomi’s phones run with Google’s App store and other services.

Xiaomi’s head of international, Hugo Barra, and other executives say the startup is an internet company, not a smartphone seller. They say this because Xiaomi’s services in music, video and games are driving revenue per user in China, albeit from very low levels.

However, smartphone sales growth remains key to its business. Smartphones sales drive spending on services like music and video. Apple analyst Toni Sacconaghi has pointed out Apple’s own services are highly correlated with smartphone growth. When people buy new phones, they buy new services; with older phones, less so. Xiaomi faces the same dilemma.

The hope for Xiaomi must be that Microsoft can put its smartphone on better footing. “Xiaomi gets IP protected with possibly a special price,” says Neil Shah, a director at Counterpoint Research in India. “But in return Microsoft locks in Xiaomi as a serious partner to drive its own ecosystem.”

Still, this is the same Microsoft that has had recent misadventures in smartphones. Last week Microsoft said it was laying off more than 1,800 workers and writing down the value of its smartphone business by $950 million. Analysts noted that this amount, along with other past writedowns, add up to more than the $7.2 billion Microsoft paid to acquire Nokia in a blockbuster 2014 deal. Its smartphone operating system market share has dwindled to a couple percentage points.

Observers must wait to see how each company approaches the partnership. But objectively, there isn’t overwhelming reason for optimism.