A topic of conversation was brought up a couple times while I was “on tour” with the T-Mobile/Grammy Concerts. What would you like to see on the Sidekick the most?/How could it be improved? I conveyed some of my own thoughts and wishful thinking (GPS and Google Maps). But I want to open it up to you guys. I can’t guarantee this will have any impact on the future of the Sidekick obviously, but I’m curious to see what everyone out there thinks the Sidekick (LX or Slide) needs. Drop your thoughts in the comments!

It’s official in the eyes of the lawyers and paper pushers, Microsoft has fully acquired Danger. Here’s the press release:

Microsoft Completes Acquisition of Danger, Incorporates Company Into Premium Mobile Experiences Group
New business group strengthens company focus on innovative mobile consumer experiences.

REDMOND, Wash. — April 15, 2008 — Microsoft Corp. has completed its acquisition of Danger, Inc., the company announced today. Danger’s expertise in building great, intuitive client software for mobile handsets connected to powerful hosted back-end services fosters rich consumer experiences in communication, media sharing, entertainment and personalization. The combined force of Danger and Microsoft strengthens the company’s ability to provide innovative mobile experiences to more consumers.

Danger will become a part of the new Premium Mobile Experiences (PMX) team, a group within the Mobile Communications Business (MCB) of the Entertainment and Devices Division at Microsoft. The PMX team focuses on consumer-facing mobile projects and is led by Roz Ho, corporate vice president of Premium Mobile Experiences, reporting to Andy Lees, senior vice president of the MCB. Danger co-founders Matt Hershenson and Joe Britt will join the new organization, reporting directly to Ho.

“We imagine a mobile experience that embraces sharing and celebrating relationships and personal moments,” Ho said. “Combining Danger and Microsoft talents together in the Premium Mobile Experiences team is how we’re going to deliver cool, new, fun mobile experiences to consumers. We want people to smile every time they look at their phone.”

The Danger mobile Internet platform, which connects people to their social circles and other rich content, is an integrated end-to-end solution that enables people to interact with their friends, social communities and content through the Internet and Internet services.

“At Danger, we created a fun and easy-to-use mobile experience for today’s Internet-savvy consumer,” Britt said.

Hershenson added, “As we combine our team and technologies with Microsoft, we see a clear path to evolving that experience and delivering it to an even broader group of consumers.”

Danger employees will continue to work from their current offices. Financial terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Press Release

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft crazy-guy CEO, has made some comments on the future of Danger, now that Microsoft s buying them. He say:

“The Danger acquisition is really about building up an application and service aspect on top of our Windows Mobile platform. Danger is really a service application experience and we want to make sure we get that in market on a great set of phones.”

Uh oh, that doesn’t sound good for the DangerOS that we’ve all come to know and love. Maybe there’s hope that they’ll keep developing it for a little bit longer, but are the Sidekick’s days numbered? Microsoft definitely sounds like their interested in the over-the-air delivery of updates and applications, more so than the incredibly easy and intuitive user interface and hardware. It’s too early to tell, but we hope that the line of Danger devices doesn’t disappear. (How’s that for alliteration, eh?)

via (Thanks for the link Alex)

Reports on the internet from “very solid sources” are reporting that Microsoft spent $500 Million to pick up Danger. There’s still no word on exactly what the plans are for Danger, but one would assume that those will be on the way soon.

Microsoft spent a cool half a billion dollars ($500 million) on Danger, making it a nice payday for investors of the Sidekick maker. While some of the early investors got modest returns, I am told that the later-stage investors made out like bandits. It has been reported previously that the company had raised $134 million in venture backing, but in reality it’s closer to $225 million.

The deal’s big sticker price is intriguing — leading me to believe that Microsoft wants to pull an Xbox on its mobile phone business. Having realized that its traditional approach is going to relegate it to business market, Microsoft is taking a non-Microsoft tact, just like it did in the gaming console business. The reason for this deal is more than just acquiring “consumer expertise,” as the company kept repeating yesterday. Danger’s software-as-a-service technology can offer “Microsoft Services” such as Search, Windows Live Mail and Messenger on the Danger platform, using it to compete with Google Android.

Source: gigaom

via

So, now that Microsoft has acquired Danger at the 3GSM Mobile World Congress 2008 in Barcelona… What does the future of the Hiptop hold?

Well, Honestly… No one knows yet. There aren’t yet enough details out from either party.

It’s too early to tell yet if our future is Microsoft killing off Danger entirely, and releasing “Windows Mobile: Hiptop Editon”.. Or if Microsoft is keeping the Danger name around as well as the HiptopOS around and just giving Danger a well needed swift kick in the ass to get the devices into the realm of current devices (WiFi, Video Playback/Record, GPS, etc.) now that Danger will have the financial resources for the Research and Development along with the Quality Assurance needed for such changes.

But, Why did Microsoft buy Danger? As we saw in the recent SEC IPO filing, Danger was losing money… lots of it. Last fiscal year (That ended September 30th) Danger had an accumulated deficit of $188.1 Million. Did Microsoft come in to be the saving grace of Danger? Or is there an alternative plan? Danger holds the patents to the Backend service, Something that could benefit Windows Mobile users greatly. Is there a chance that Microsoft bought out Danger just to get their hand on those patents? (If the assets of the company were part of the buyout agreement.)

Also, don’t forget that T-Mobile has exclusive rights. What happens to that now? If Microsoft kills off Danger and absorbs it’s assets into Microsoft, does that contract still stand or will we see “Hiptops” on other GSM and even CDMA carriers? Was Danger in a $188.1 Million dollar deficit because they signed a contract to be exclusive to T-Mobile? It’s sure not because they aren’t selling devices. Every time you see someone in the Generation X/Y age range, they usually have some form of a Hiptop/Sidekick. Was the global outreach of the Hiptop not hitting? In other countries, 3G is the standard. Is the deficit because the device isn’t selling overseas due to the lack of 3G?

In this editor’s opinion, Hopefully Microsoft keeps Danger and the HiptopOS around, but just pours it’s financial resources into it to bring us into the current generation of phones in our category and there’s no Zunephone in the works.

There are still very many empty holes, and questions left to be answered. But, this will be a very interesting year for Hiptop fans and users, as well as Danger employees.

As of right now, it’s way too early to push any panic buttons and start to freak out about this… We need to see details of the agreement and future strategies before pushing that panic button.

Edit: Spelling corrections, thanks Aaron.

This JUST in! Microsoft, Inc has agreed to acquire Danger, Inc. Details on the Acquisition are not available, and Danger has not yet released a statement yet. (As of 9:53AM EST)

“Danger continues to provide an effortless and fun mobile experience for consumers,” said Henry R. Nothhaft, chairman and CEO of Danger Inc. “Now by combining our uncompromised application software and powerful back-end service with Microsoft, we can expand our innovative service offerings even further and take mobility to a new level.”

Stay tuned for more information as it comes in.

Source: Microsoft PressPass Mirror of PR Announcement

Update: 11:30am EST: The press release has been removed from Microsoft.com, and there is still no press release on Danger.com. More information as it comes in to us.
(Thanks, Moonrock for the update!)

We can only hope that Hank Nothhaft sobered up from a night of heavy drinking, and filed for an annulment from Steve Ballmer after he read the papers on the desk he signed.

Looks like Danger is going public. They’ve filed with the SEC with the hopes of raising $100 million. We’re still looking through the filing as it’s chock full of interesting information on the company behind these Sidekick devices that have been in our pockets for the last 5 years. More info to come.

How successful is Danger? Try almost a million users and a nice chunk of change generated by those users:

From the introduction of our solution in October 2002 through September 30, 2007, the number of subscribers to our mobile data services has grown to approximately 923,000. Our total revenues have grown from $49.3 million in the year ended September 30, 2006 to $56.4 million in the year ended September 30, 2007, and our service revenues have grown from $38.9 million in the year ended September 30, 2006 to $50.6 million in the year ended September 30, 2007.

Danger expresses their reliance on T-Mobile:

We are substantially dependent on T-Mobile USA, Inc., or T-Mobile USA, for our revenues and if we fail to maintain our relationship with T-Mobile USA or if T-Mobile USA reduces its expenditures for marketing our mobile data services, alters the data plan pricing under which it offers our mobile data services, or offers or promotes competing mobile data services in lieu of, or to a greater degree than, our mobile data services, our revenues would be materially and substantially reduced.

And a whopping 94.5% of their revenue is from T-Mobile (worldwide). They also mention that their contract with T-Mobile will end on December 2008, where T-Mobile will have to renew it should they choose to. (We hope they do)

They also express the fear that Google’s Android brings:

We operate in a highly competitive industry and we may not be able to compete effectively. In addition, recent developments in the mobile device and mobile services markets, such as the formation of the Google-led Open Handset Alliance, as well as the introduction of new wireless technologies and new entrants seeking to gain market share, could harm our competitive position.

And Danger even owns up to the fact that their competitors have a “quicker pace of innovation” than them, one of the main reasons that many of the early adopters have left the Sidekick.

There is a lot of mention of the problems that the Sidekick Slide faced with the recall and delay. There is even mention of the Paris Hilton “hack”.

Even the perception of a security risk could inhibit market acceptance of Danger-enabled mobile devices and our mobile data services. For example, in February 2005, the personal information contained on Paris Hilton’s Sidekick device was disclosed on the Internet. Although investigations into the incident concluded that our mobile data services solution was not at fault, the incident may have raised concerns regarding the security of our mobile data services solution

Some random snippets we found interesting:

The number of our customers’ subscribers using Danger-enabled mobile devices has increased substantially from approximately 136,000 as of September 30, 2004 to approximately 923,000 as of September 30, 2007. Our total revenues have grown from $49.3 million in the year ended September 30, 2006 to $56.4 million in the year ended September 30, 2007, and our service revenues have grown from $38.9 million in the year ended September 30, 2006 to $50.6 million in the year ended September 30, 2007. Since our inception, we have not been profitable. Our loss from operations was $10.3 million, $8.0 million and $11.8 million in the years ended September 30, 2005, 2006 and 2007, respectively and we expect to continue to incur operating losses for the foreseeable future. As of September 30, 2007 our accumulated deficit was $188.1 million. The last day of our fiscal year is September 30.

The strength of our solution is demonstrated by the frequent use of interactive mobile applications and heavy consumption of downloadable mobile content by consumers using Danger-enabled mobile devices. During the quarter ended September 30, 2007, consumers using Danger-enabled mobile devices, on a monthly basis:

• sent and received an average of 3,223 instant messages;
• viewed an average of 481 web pages; and
• sent and received an average of 930 text messages.

Additionally, more than 60% of consumers using Danger-enabled mobile devices purchased downloadable content during the quarter ended September 30, 2007, with each purchaser buying an average of four downloadable content items during the quarter ended September 30, 2007.

Large and growing third-party developer program. In addition to the internal development of our core data applications, we have cultivated a large and growing third-party developer program for the creation of premium applications, content and services to be distributed on our platform. Our third-party developer program is designed to foster a steady and competitive pipeline of premium applications, content and services that we believe enhance the overall consumer experience. Our third-party developers leverage our integrated technology platform and our operator and OEM relationships to commercialize and distribute premium applications, content and services to a broad audience through a single point of distribution. By encouraging third-party development of content for our platform, we are able to continuously extend the functionality and breadth of our offering and enhance the value of our solution. We have experienced rapid growth in our developer program, with more than 50 of our third-party developers publishing an aggregate of 218 games, applications and networked services as of September 30, 2007.

Enhanced content offering. The collection of the premium applications, content and services available to end users of Danger-enabled mobile devices ranges from traditional mobile content, including basic games and ringtones, to highly differentiated applications, content and services, including networked services, multi-player networked games, multimedia themes and productivity tools. As of September 30, 2007, our master catalog of premium applications, content and services included 161 games, 43 applications, 14 networked services, more than 2,700 ringtones and 66 background themes. The premium applications, content and services available to individual subscribers vary by mobile operator, market and Danger-enabled mobile device model.

Employees

As of September 30, 2007, we had 300 employees. Of these employees, 287 were in the United States, 12 were in Europe and one was in Australia. We also engage a number of temporary employees and consultants. None of our employees is represented by labor unions or covered by a collective bargaining agreement. We have not experienced any work stoppages, and we consider our employee relationships to be good.

Hank Nothhaft, the CEO of Danger made a cool $544,000+ this year working for Danger.

SEC filing
via

T-Mobile hardly has to advertise for the Sidekick since the community does it for them. But for some reason they insist on throwing some money to some advertising people to make up commercials that mostly suck.

Here’s the latest one for the Sidekick LX (Sorry for the quality, it’s the only copy I was able to find online):

The one for the Sidekick iD was a little better:

The all time favorite of a lot of the old school Sidekickers is the one they put together for the original BW/CSK model, featuring Johnny Chase:

T-Mobile should hire whoever’s behind this video to do their next commercial:

The girl behind the camera is right, the Sidekick definitely did not work at Burning Man.