Microsoft Licenses exFAT to Research In Motion

By Wolfgang Gruener
published

Microsoft said that it has entered a licensing agreement with Research in Motion that provides the company with the ability to integrate the latest Extended File Allocation Table (exFAT) for "certain Blackberry devices".

"Today's smartphones and tablets require the capacity to display richer images and data than traditional cellular phones," said David Kaefer, general manager of Intellectual Property Licensing at Microsoft, in a prepared statement. "This agreement with RIM highlights how a modern file system, such as exFAT can help directly address the specific needs of customers in the mobile industry."

exFAT, developed as a file system specifically for flash memory devices, is used as a successor for FAT in all scenarios where NTFS does not make much sense. Versus FAT, exFAT extends the maximum file size a flash memory device can work with by a factor of five, as well as an increase of storage capacity support from 32 GB to 256 TB. In a single directory, exFAT can handle up to 2,796,202 individual files.

At this time, exFAT is supported by Windows XP SP2 (with exFAT patch upgrade) and above, as well as Mac OS X 10.6.6 and above.

Microsoft said that it has entered into similar licensing agreements with companies such as Panasonic, Sanyo, Sony and Canon.

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Wolfgang Gruener
13 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Zingam
    How about a license free file system for flash devices????
    Reply
  • spentshells
    Way to be days behind toms ....
    Reply
  • tokencode
    RIM should be licensing Windows Phone OS, not just a file system.... in a few more years blackberry will simple mean fruit again...
    Reply
  • nieur
    tokencodeRIM should be licensing Windows Phone OS, not just a file system.... in a few more years blackberry will simple mean fruit again...
    hoping in a few more years Apple will simply mean fruit again
    Reply
  • puddleglum
    ZingamHow about a license free file system for flash devices????You could always go with ext2 or one of its derivatives/
    Reply
  • ddpruitt
    WTF??? This is why RIM is in trouble. FAT (and by extension it's derivatives) is waaay to inefficient for storage on large devices. Figure you're losing 10-15% of the drives space just to figure store the tables (that's why your SD cards always show such smaller than advertised capacity). Modern??? It was designed 30+ years ago!!
    Reply
  • Northwestern
    ddpruittWTF??? This is why RIM is in trouble. FAT (and by extension it's derivatives) is waaay to inefficient for storage on large devices. Figure you're losing 10-15% of the drives space just to figure store the tables (that's why your SD cards always show such smaller than advertised capacity). Modern??? It was designed 30+ years ago!!FAT =/= exFAT

    Reply
  • samkl
    ddpruittWTF??? This is why RIM is in trouble. FAT (and by extension it's derivatives) is waaay to inefficient for storage on large devices. Figure you're losing 10-15% of the drives space just to figure store the tables (that's why your SD cards always show such smaller than advertised capacity). Modern??? It was designed 30+ years ago!!
    SD cards show less space because of bit/byte conversions.
    Reply
  • ddpruitt
    9405364 said:
    FAT =/= exFAT
    exFAT is FAT with extensions added to it for larger files and metadata. It's only used in low power devices because it's less computationally expensive. It's not used in any other medium because it uses several times more space than any other modern filesystem. Read the literature first before you comment.

    9405376 said:
    SD cards show less space because of bit/byte conversions.

    If that were so then they would show more, not less space. Flash memory capacities are 2^x vs hard-disks that are 10^x, which is why they show less space. Doesn't apply here.
    Reply
  • Camikazi
    ddpruittFlash memory capacities are 2^x vs hard-disks that are 10^x, which is why they show less space. Doesn't apply here.From what I see flash drives are numbered based on base 10 just like HDDs, every flash drive I have formats with the exact amount of space as a GB would be in GiB.
    Reply