Microsoft buys Danger, Windows Mobile Sidekick imminent
By Joshua Topolsky 
posted Feb 11th 2008 10:43AM
posted Feb 11th 2008 10:43AM
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Boo.
It's always sad to watch the machine gobble up more and more creative enterprises. I always thought Danger did a good job of design and marketing, at least to the consumer crowd (though they never got their prices to the "sweet" spot), it'll be a shame that they become another arm of MS.
Say it ain't so Danger. Yahoo! did it, you can too!
nice, now we will have a smartphone with a shitty build AND OS! great.
Boo.
It's always sad to watch the machine gobble up more and more creative enterprises. I always thought Danger did a good job of design and marketing, at least to the consumer crowd (though they never got their prices to the "sweet" spot), it'll be a shame that they become another arm of MS.
Say it ain't so Danger. Yahoo! did it, you can too!
The Yahoo! deal isn't a "done deal" yet.
YES!
I love Windows Mobile.
Call me crazy.
me too. I just wish I could install in like an other os and remove some sprint crap.
Crazy.
Crazy. I've had 2 devices with Window's Mobile and hated the UI and they way it handles memory. I'm on my 3rd sidekick and I'll admit that it's FAR from perfect- I like the simplicity of the UI and overall ease of use. I don't know- combining two companies responsible for problematic devices... I don't think anything good can come from this- but we'll see.
Imma go with the obvious here: DANGER WILL ROB YOU SON, DANGER!!!!!
I guess Microsoft loves Black ppl
LMAO so funny and so true haha my cousin was wishin it had more functions and multimedia capabilities looks like it will soon to bad it will be at a high price
and?
high Price? sidekicks are in the $400 range and have the worst cameras out on the market. the platform for the ergonomics is unbeatable, but it lacks functions
Sorta odd that you'd say that when it was Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan and a whole bunch of "that group" had their phones before everybody else when the Sidekick 3 came out... weird comment dude.
Now that more and more companies are offering the unequaled usability and compatibility of WM and the soon-to-be Android, maybe I can finally find the just-right phone.
Looks like cell phone users under the age of 15 can get their Windows fix now. : )
Geez, you and Mo with the stereotyping.
The Sidekick's got the only five-row keyboard on a smart phone. It's also got a robust ssh client (albeit a $10 addon). That makes for happy sysadmins. Beyond that, while I'm not claiming the platform's the ideal, I'm happy that the OS and bundled apps focus so perfectly on Internet functionality. If I wanted a great cellphone camera and music player on a mediocre cellphone with the world's worst keyboard, I'd get an iPhone.
Okay... it's not that I think the Sidekick is a lousy product. It actually really is a solid little phone with a decent interface (especially its version of AIM). But the little "fliparound" screen (the Slide, I suppose, isn't as bad) and just simply the sheer VOLUME of teenage hipsters running around with them makes it hard not to stereotype.
A good product, maybe. But can make you look a little unprofessional? Definitely.
so they put in a little feature 15 year old girls like. apple does it all the time.
Actually, the trackball bothers me more than the screen (I liked the scroll wheel *much* better); I think the swivel screen is one of the secrets of the Sidekick's ergonomic success. Plenty of smartphones have hinged screens as large and heavy as the keyboard. That's awkward and uncomfortable at best. The center of gravity needs to be within the keyboard for any kind of serious typing.
Honestly, the Sidekick LX really is the ideal Internet-enabled smartphone from a design standpoint; I have a hard time taking three- and four-line keyboards like the BlackBerry's seriously. The impositions that Danger and T-Mobile put on the platform, unfortunately, hobble it. But given the tradeoffs and compromises, I'm happy to help make the Sidekick that much less cool by using it constantly.
"The Sidekick's got the only five-row keyboard on a smart phone."
Nokia disagrees with you...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Nokia-e90.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Nokia_e70_auki.jpg
My bad. Let's change it to "The Sidekick's got the only five-line keyboard that isn't ludicrous or just sad on a smartphone."
I don't indulge, myself, but for the sake of people who do, I hope the weed that inspired the E70's "keyboard" makes it to these shores.
Ugh. One of the things I LOVE about my Sidekick is that it's NOT Windows Mobile, having just used that for a year and a half.
I had a Sidekick for a long time... Unfortunately, you have it backwards. While Windows Mobile is craptastic in its own ways, the Sidekick OS is _far_ worse.
I remember when I first owned my Hiptop. I was constantly submitting bugs... until I eventually gave up. There were just too many and the fact that they crippled the phone for developers royally pissed me off.
Kris, all I can tell you is, after 1.5 years with Winmo and .25 with Sidekick, I've had NO bugs on the Sidekick and it's so much quicker to move around.
I found Windows Mobile to be incredibly slow, bloated, difficult to navigate, and overly complicated. Perhaps it wasn't a right fit for me; I'm not a PDA poweruser - however, it was still slow and tough to move around quickly.
Realizing they make crap, Microsoft has concluded the only way to produce decent products is to buy a company that does it right?
I meant that figurativly as in the sidekick will now be plagued with the woes of WinMo...I personally think the sidekick is not worth the price it cost at all and is for the most part useless but thats just me and it serves its target audience well
I think a lot of people are missing a big part of the equation here... Microsoft is now a Phone Hardware MANUFACTURER. They just got themselves into the game in a much bigger way it seems to me.
Um what? Danger was always about the software.
Danger never made the phone.
It was always made by Sharp. and on the slide by motorola
Sidekicks were manufactured by Sharp and Motorola, man.
Danger just did the software.
SK's have always been manufactured by Sharp until now. Motorola also manufacture SK's for T-Mobile.
Well, Danger isn't a hardware manufacturer, but it does design the Sidekick hardware. That's its strength; like Apple, the hardware's designed to accommodate the software and vice versa.
Nope, Danger doesn't design the hardware, hasn't for a long time. SW only folks.
Then again I've been wrong before. Thanks for the clarification everyone!
Seems like a weird purchase, I guess we'll see where this one goes.
I guess they can no longer deny any interest in making a Zune phone.
Yes, THE ZUNE PHONE COMETH! Run and tremble in fear iPhone, run and tremble in fear ;^)...
Dead Link. MS pull the news?
@chrisaroz:
I thought that danger made the software. The likes of Phillips and recently Moto (slide) were the hardware manufacturers.
All of a sudden Microsoft have gone back to buying anything and everything, and now when I go onto engadget mobile, I get a big AOL ad that doesn't go away for at least a minute.
It's the 90s again! My time machine worked!
try using adblock plus
Mo
-"I gues Microsoft loves black people"
WTF was that comment suppose to mean. That made no sense, and had nothing to do with the article.
This is outta nowhere. I feel like this isn't going to go in the right direction for Danger. I have a Sidekick LX, and one of the key features is the OS. Putting WM on the next installments of the kickster just doesn't scream "buy me"--well, at least not to me. I've always been a fan (and owner) of the sidekick line, and I was looking forward to what Danger was (is?) going to come out with. Actually, I'm not really sure what to think of this, yet. I guess we'll have to see. It may not matter, anyway, since Sidekicks are targeted to the younger audiences who'll use them, regardless of what (possibly hideous, maybe new) OS it uses. You know, 'cause it's the cool phone. I'm 17, by the way.
While I am worried Microsoft will screw this thing up, it *COULD* work out well if M$ does the following:
1) Reduces the profile of the Sidekick to be less brick-like
2) Skin Windows Mobile to be more consumer friendly. Perhaps a Zune-line interface?
3) Touch screen?
4) Add Zune functionality
A corporate version of the Sidekick could be a real winner if Microsoft plays their cards right, but what are the odds of that?
Sidekick 4 - aka Zune phone
On Microsoft's grocery list:
Yahoo
Motorola
Apple
Comcast
Tribune Co.
Johnson & Johnson
The US Government
The United Nations
Pluto
Pluto isn't even a planet now. Far too pathetic for Microsoft.
I'd peg them for a Jupiter purchase.
So, is "Danger" going to be Bill's middle name?
According to Eric Schmidt, it's butthead.
http://www.statesman.com/business/content/business/stories/technology/02/11/0211schmidt.html
MY WORLD, IT IS CRUSHED.
my disappointment, let me show it to you.
well, i guess i'm definitely going to the xperia 1 now. danger, you've let me down.
Symbian, Android, and even Windows Mobile and the iPhone's OS seem more capable than the Danger OS; this purchase really makes zero sense. And as an ol' Sidekick II owner. It was buggy, would have to be rebooted when it slowed down, what not.
This seriously makes no sense as far as a purchase for Microsoft goes. Perhaps they'll overlay Silverlight on top of the OS and make it "look pretty"...
A)One less competitor out there
B)"Windows Mobile... not just for your dad's phone"
C)Hope to eventually have those "15 year old hipsters", that everyone stereotypes SK users to be, grow up and adopt another Windows Mobile platform phone.
It's like religion or McDonalds' advertising..."get 'em while they are young and impressionable".
you guys haven't a single clue as to what you're talking about. danger was really only relative, oh, THREE YEARS AGO when they came out with the color sidekick. every reiteration since then is pretty much the model from four years ago with one or two extra features, while lacking the real features real users wanted.
(wait, am i talking about the sidekick, or the ipod?)
anyhoops, danger hasn't done anything right since then, their last deal with Motorola turned out problematic (and they also might leave the phone business), they're releasing more of the same, while not being innovative at all. if anything, microsoft will help danger be more creative, with a solid hardware design team and a lot of UI lessons learned with the Zune and Surface.
oh yes, i mentioned zunes and phones in the same comment. i went there, girlfriend!
wait, does this mean the next sidekick won't have yahoo messenger or aim?
MSN can talk to Yahoo already. Perhaps they'll add the others in the name of "remaining fair and balanced"... lest the EU or FTC sue them again.
not true, as Microsoft devices only have MSN on them. the next sidekick will be a Microsoft device, n'est-ce pa?
Desktop clients can - http://get.live.com/messenger/addyahoo
I can't comment on the current state of affairs on the Windows Mobile clients... only thing I have with Windows Mobile is my iPaq 2215 (2003) that HP will never release an update for it.
its AOL's fault Live isnt (interplatform?) i kno theirs an actual word (so ive read). if that is so, AOL would have to come into some sort of agreement with MS or they would lose a lot of mobile bandwidth. Everyone i kno with a kick uses AIM.
@Mo Kim
you buy phones for their camera features? do you also buy cars for the cigarette lighters too?
You're a cantankerous dumbass. Of COURSE some folks will buy phones for the camera features. I'm seriously looking at the 5MP Nokia N82 just for that reason -- yes, S60 is great, and yes, Nokia makes top-notch phones. Throw in a 5MP camera with flash that's actually USEFUL, and I'll shell out the extra $100 or so to get that. You know why? Because you just can't have enough pics of the kids, and you don't always have the proper digicam around. My current phone has a quite-usable 2MP camera, which I probably use 3-4 times a week, and as much for 3gp video.
all i'm saying is: if you want a good cameraphone, tape each of them together like bret did for jermaine's birthday.
Billy is coming to Waterloo (Canada) next week.. lets see if i can ask him about this ^_^
Ahhh, I *love* the Sidekick. I've had three of them. And before you slap your tired *ss stereotypes on me, I'm 54, father of 3, and Pres/CEO of a software company.
No, it ain't perfect. Yes, the web is slow on it. No, it ain't compact. Yes, it garnered stares from young and old when the geezer in the corner whipped it out.
I'll tell you this: I trying a T-Mobile Dash running WinMo now and it sucks big time. Just plain sucks. The keyboard is BS.
Now? I'm not looking to Sidekick/T-Mobile/Danger et al. for my next phone. I'm not going to buy an iPhone til I see what Google has in mind. And don't get me started about carrying 98052 around in my pocket every day.
Just my 2 cents worth.
slow web browsing is tmobile's fault, not the sidekicks. and what does what keyboard you favor have to do with who purchases what? the next iteration could have any number of possibilities.
for a "CEO of a software company," you sure are dumb. i take it you're the only employee?
You should check out the Sidekick Slide or the LX. I came from the T-Mobile MDA and love the Slide, but it's very small; I have small hands, but the buttons are tiny on the Slide. Bigger on the LX. If you don't need Excel, Word, Outlook, etc. and all the BS on Winmo, the new Sides are awesome.
Actually, Danger has a lot to do with the slow Web browsing, since they insist on stuffing all pages through a proxy to be reformatted before sending it along to the Sidekick to be displayed.
On the relatively new LX -- I don't know if it's true of the Slide -- you can finally use a range of font sizes in the browser. But often the proxy overrides your choice. And when you hit the key command to use a larger size? The browser has to re-request the page and wait for it to be re-transmitted from the proxy at the new larger size. It can't just display a font size change. Foolish.
THIS SUCKS! SUCKS! SUCKS! No good can come from this.
Here's the million dollar question:
WHAT ARE THESE "PROBLEMS" AND "WOES" OF WINDOWS MOBILE THAT EVERYONE KEEPS WHINING ABOUT?
or are you just assuming that it's problematic because it's made by Microsoft?
Lousy contact management, no sync over wifi in ActiveSync 4.5 (it was available in 4.2 -- what the?), too much overhead for the small processors, lousy phone-interface, esp on touch-screen devices, too many clicks to get to SMS functionality or recent-call list. Overall very non-intuitive. It feels like a half-baked PDA with a phone-addon, which also isn't done very well.
Not to mention crappy A2DP, no USB mass storage mode as standard, no OS X support, no native Lotus Notes support, no profiles (on Pro), shitty built-in apps (WMP, PIE)...
... and that's not before the random resets/crashes.
Who's seen the movie called "Antitrust"?
no seriously!
I can see it now: Sidekick 4 Zune
they might as well buy the iphone.
Zunekick
Microsoft is crazy if they think the business world will drop their berrys for a phone that looks like a sidekick, but apple wasn't really targeting that consumer group either and they did ok.
That said, if microsoft works with existing danger software people to develope a less buggy, microsoft based "clone" of the sidekick's software, that does not contain icons that look like they came out of an anime cartoon, they will do ok. The zune's sofware would be a decent platform from a strictly style standpoint.
keep windows mobile off of it, but make it microsoft based, and we may have a winner.
microsoft can do anything! MONEY=POWER (unfortunately). all they gotta do is keep throwing around the cash from their unlimited bank account and ppl will follow, if not be forced!
Just test-drove a T-Mo Wing... never touched a side-kick, but I do have to say that Windows Mobile renders a perfectly good device nearly unusable. It's so-so as a PDA, but it's ridiculous as a phone. The only "phone" device I found less usable in recent months was the iPod/Phone.
If Microsoft really wants to make a splash they should buy HTC. Now, THAT would be a good buy.
yea, but if they start manufacturing their own phones, that would ultimately be a loss rite, cuz why would their partners stay partners if their gonna directly compete with them? well i guess there are reasons why, but i would be happy if my partner decided to do that to me.
It actually sounds like a good fit. I always thought the sidekick was cool except it was made and marketed for teenage girls. If they make a more "adult contemporary" version with WM...it might be cool.
the only thing i dont like about the kicks is they dont have WinMo. (oh and not touch screen or wifi and its tmobile).
i'd be a liar if i said WinMo was flawless, a BIG liar! However, i refuse to get a phone without it. My experience with it has been buggy, but not too much that it turned me away from them. i started out with the ATT 8125 for about 6 months. and know ive had the 8525 for about 1.5 and i think the amount of things u can actually do is amazing. WinMo 6, is far better and I havent had a single prob with 6.1 (about a months use).
a ZuneKick would be awesome i think hahah. just not with tmobile, ew
Guys, WM is not that bad. The problem is the coders of these billion-dollar companies rushed everything and you get memory leaks and such that makes the device painfully slow and nearing unusability. Fix: update a different ROM through xda-developers or anything of the like and the phone you hated is much faster with a lot of options in terms of looks and software.
WinMo Pro, WinMo Standard and now, WinMo Teen coming soon. This is about as useful as buying Garrnet.
i love the sidekick but its for kids. cheap, plastic and very limited in what you can do.
I don't think anyone is really getting the significance of this. The last time I used a sidekick, the OS was great. WinMo isn't. MS buys Danger. Danger adds their good OS(mobile) making knowledge to MS's bank account and we get an amazing release of WinMo. Or am I just crazy?