Microsoft said to have dropped $500 million on Danger
By Donald Melanson 
posted Feb 12th 2008 4:41PM
posted Feb 12th 2008 4:41PM
While Microsoft was doing little to hide how much it was willing to spend on Yahoo!, the company's been decidedly more coy about exactly how much it dropped to pick up Sidekick-maker Danger earlier this week. The ever-dependable Om Malik now claims to have turned up a figure, however, and while it pales compared to that Yahoo! offer, it's still quite a doozy. According to Om, a "fairly solid source" informed him that Microsoft parted with a full $500 million to bring Danger into its fold, with later-stage investors in Danger the biggest beneficiaries of that payday. What's more, that hefty price also got Om speculating that Microsoft may be about to "pull an Xbox" with its cellphone business, fearing that its current approach would relegate it to the business market -- a pretty safe assumption, if you ask us.
How much was the bid for yahoo again!?!?!!?
gee maybe now i can have a microsoft-based cellphone that doesnt have an ugly/slow/shitty interface
A better question is does this now make Danger Microsoft's middle name?
So why do they want danger again?
Zune phone anyone???
Maybe closer to Xbox Phone; music, communications, AND gaming. That could be cool. This would a better tie-in with the Live! gaming integration with PC, console, and mobile.
Eh -- probably true. However, as much as Microsoft says they are dedicated to the 'Windows Mobile' platform and won't be giving that up anytime soon - they did say that same thing about "Plays For Sure" and we all know we now have Zune and Plays For Sure formats. Whatever it is - I'm sure it will intergrate with Xbox and the Windows enviroment. I think Windows Mobile will stay around - because they license it and its still needed in corporate enviroments -- but I think they will create another brand (or use an existing brand) on the Sidekicks. It may be a Windows Mobile, XBox gaming phone - and the MP3/Music Portion have Zune intergration. A convergence of all 3 devices into one...hmmmmm...interesting indeed
It probably wouldn't be called the Zunephone or the Xboxphone, it would probably have a unique name, somehow revolutionalize the industry like the Zune and the Xbox has, and then will become a dominant product in terms of cell phones. I really hope they make a phone, it runs windows mobile and has a full qwerty keyboard with a nice set of features (like as many as the Sony experia). Hopefully they do something new, like how the Zune was one of the first Mp3 players to do something with Wi-Fi or the Xbox to be one of the first gaming consoles to do so much more than gaming and also have the great backbone of a network that we know of as Xbox live, maybe this phone will have the features of a Zune and Xbox combined with a phone, but I doubt it will be called Zunephone or Xboxphone. Also, I think the product's name will start with a Y. Why do I think this???
V for Vista, W for Windows, X for Xbox, Y is not used for any major products and Z is for Zune.
So because many of their recent product names have been in the end of the alphabet, I think it'll start with a Y. It's just a guess though, so don't start coming up with rumors of the Yellophone or the Yphone. LOL, I just realized Yphone rhymes with Iphone.
Zune would be a better brand though, portable devices.
@Sam. You didn't seriously say "somehow revolutionalize the industry like the Zune" did you? I'm not going to bash the Zune, but revolutionary it's not.
@ Sam
You do realize that any word that ends with "phone" will rhyme with iPhone right?
the Y could be used for Yahoo.
zPhone
@Josh: To be fair about the PlayForSure comparison you made, I think coming out with the Zune was better than nothing.
It seemed like all of Microsoft PlayForSure partners (both online stores and devices) just weren't producing anything compelling or interesting enough over the iPod. So if MS didn't step in at that time, it would have been far longer to catch-up with the iPod then.
Honestly, would you really 'want' to use any of the PlayForSure platform stuff? Even before the Zune? I don't think so. The idea was interesting at first (any song there works on many supported devices - though by DRM) but the product and stores themselves just weren't cool enough.
MS could have been smarter, and let Zune Marketplace and Zune device work with WMP, so that at least Zune MP was PlayForSure, and tracks bought there were guaranteed to work for the Zune, but oh well.
I like the Zune 2. I don't think many other devices besides the iPod gets this many accessories and attention.
too much for a company whose next product was gonna be identical to the one released 5 years ago.
i could be wrong...but i was under the impression that danger wasnt actually profitable yet.
The Sidekick sucks.
how can any product endorsed by the likes of Paris Hilton, Snoop Dogg and Lindsay Lohan suck? Oh, wait...
LOL, the sidekick isn't that bad. It definitely has room for improvement, and Microsoft surely can fix that. It' not like the cheap crap Motorola has been making lately.
hey that reminds me, remember when Snoop won something on the MTV awards a couple years ago and he answered that his charity of choice was his urban football team or whatever; the majority of proceeds which went to making a pimpmobile HDTV bus for his son? yeah.
It must be true! Someone said so in a comment on the Internet!
say what you want about the iPhone, but Apple seems to have shaken things up quite a bit.
...right.
@ Ellianth. Please elaborate. do you agree or disagree? You must admit that Microsoft didn't seem al that interested in creating their own phone until all the hype around the iPhone happened (likewise the Zune/iPod). Look at Nokia's response to the iPhone: http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/29/nokias-iphone-no-seriously/
You may or may not appreciate the iPhone, but the impact it has had on the mobile phone market is definitely evident.
I hate touch screens, my fingers get in the way of the stuff. iPhones were always just a big gimmick to me. I own a mac so my opinion is valid.
@nick. so you don't like the iPhone. That's nice but not the point. Do you deny that the iPhone has had an impact on the mobile phone industry?
No, see this is the common problem Apple supporters make. There have been touchscreen phones for years from companies like Handspring, Kyocera, Palm, HTC and so forth. Apple fans just ignored that market segment until Apple entered it, and then all of a sudden noticed all these touchscreen phones and declared "look, everyone is following Apple's lead." It isn't that they weren't there before, and it isn't that people are now making them because of the iPhone. If anything it is the exact opposite. Apple is riding the ascendancy of the popularity of PDA form factor phones with their iPhone, and following the trend that has been moving in the industry since before they even entered it.
Oh, and by the way, Microsoft designed their own phone reference design years ago, and it was called Stinger. They flirted briefly with the idea of actually selling it as a Microsoft product, but decided to go the normal Microsoft route of trying to license it instead, but no one was interested. So, no, it is not the iPhone that first gave Microsoft the idea of designing their own phone hardware.
I'm thinking "Phune"
Well, I like my xbox and I like my zune so if they make a phone, I'm willing to give it a look. Zune integration is a must and live integration would be nice too. The price would have to be right though, I'm only willing to spend so much for a phone.
If Microsoft's Phone (that they may/may not make) comes out and the name starts with a Y, let it be known I knew ahead of time the first letter just by guessing. If not, then this will sound like the stupidest comment I've posted yet, and you can feel free to flame me when the phone doesn't start with a Y.
If you don't understand this comment, you probably didn't read the one above my other one.
i loved my SK2, good job on the amazing buyout danger!
I wouldn't be jumping up and down for joy over this. The Xbox 360 with the Red Ring of Death hasn't exactly inspired me to drop a boatload of cash down on it.
While I own a Zune (the 30gb model was hella cheap), I don't know that I'd be willing to buy a phone with mp3 storage.
Redundancy in multiple electronic devices blows.
"I don't know that I'd be willing to buy a phone with mp3 storage."
That's pretty much every phone released these days.
500 mill to get a ZUNE PHONE?!? Dang Ballmer, after taking such a bath on the Zune PMP I would have thought you'd be a little more frugal than that. No one wants a brown phone that can only call the same person three times before it deletes the phone number anyway, dude. Stick to making people miserable on their desktop.
There is no place like home
there is no place like home
there is no place like home
...what do you mean i can't call that number again??
Sam Zebian: "V for Vista, W for Windows, X for Xbox, Y is not used for any major products and Z is for Zune."
This, of course, is why they were trying to buy Yahoo!
D.
Lol, didn't realize that. Maybe they had to buy Danger as a second opportunity to use the letter in a product name (I hope I'm right)
I don't think Vista and Windows should count as seperate products.
Nice observation to the both of you though.
I think they should call it the Zhone.
pull an xbox?
If this thing is a phone+game system that lets me pop a SIM card in and jump on Live then it's bye bye Sprint. Poker and Street Fighter II Live on the go FTW. Well at least I can dream.
Sprint is the perfect example that something can suck and blow at the same time. I'm so happy to be rid of them!
I wonder if the Zune will ever make it to Europe.
Which is the preoccupation? if nobody is going to leave stroll with that amount of money. Maybe they would pay through a banking transference or with actions in another companies. kansasdepartmentofwildlifeandparks. net
Dang. Wouldn't it have been cheaper to just spec out whatever you wanted to HTC.
They could have just said, "Yeah, I want a Kaiser/tilt. But make it half as thick with no tilt and make it slide out on the proper side like it used to."
HTC makes hardware, Danger makes software.
is anyone in this thread actually authentic?
Depends what you mean by "authentic"...
That picture is still funny, even though its been used a couple times already.
MS could just be insulating itself against Android. Danger has a proprietary OS. It would have eventually been sold to someone. MS just made sure it wasn't Google. As a value-add MS can port game and content services onto a new arm of the Windows Mobile tree.
Yeah, we all know how popular the N-Gage was...
Is. Nokia has started adding N-Gage emulation onto it's high end phones such as the N95.
Microsoft has a nack for spending lost of money on bad purchases. They always seem to be several years behind the curve. http://www.tagsum.com/news/10311/Microsoft-said-to-have-dropped-500-million-on-Danger
Hmmm, $500 million to Microsoft is like $50,000 to an NBA player, which is like $5000 to Paris Hilton, which is like 5 bucks to us average schmucks!
Red Ring of Death
ok that was harsh on my part i just really hope microsoft fixes this soon
"speculating that Microsoft may be about to "pull an Xbox" with its cellphone business"
i wonder what would have happened to the xbox if MS hadn't bought Bungie...
there are so many phones out there; an MS phone would have to be fairly redic to stand out.
The Sidekick was nice for what it was intended for. IM, SMS and non-corporate email. Browser sucked but it was going to with non-3G speeds. It was my favorite keyboard for messaging by far and I liked the flip screen. The Sidekick demographic seems to fit the Xbox demographic well. Put in strong XBox Live integration (playing your XBLA games on the go would be a strong start), slimmer form factor, YouTube, music and a reasonable price (carrier subsidies would help here, something LESS than $399) and it could do fairly well. It will be interesting to see how they handle carriers. MVNO, unlocked GSM (not likely), exclusive agreement (T-Mobile is the obvious choice per Danger's history).
ROFL ...instead of the Red Ring of Death, how about the Tone Ring of Death?
this didn't make me any happier. yup, the lx will be my very last sidekick.
ah i knew thee well.
If the phone runs Windows Vista, they could call it the: CrashPhone.
How about Microsoft makes a car that runs all Windows. Then you would have to reboot your car while doing 65 MPH on the freeway!