Microsoft Lays Off Danger Employees
Thursday, May 7th, 2009We’re hearing lots of rumors left and right about some lay-offs of Danger employees by Microsoft (who purchased Danger). There is a lot of hearsay and speculation about what this means. While Microsoft did announce a general across-the-board series of layoffs, we can’t help but wonder how much harder the Danger group was hit for a variety of possible reasons. There’s been rumors of Danger employees being moved to the secretive “Pink” project that Microsoft is working on. (Supposedly the Pink project is very similar to Danger’s back-end service) The Sidekick LX 2009 is days from launch and so a lot of employees that were needed for that might have been let go. Or they could have just pulled names out of a hat, who knows. Lay-offs are never an easy thing.
It doesn’t look like it was the entire Danger team, but definitely sounds like more than one or two. We’ve gathered up some posts to Twitter about the lay-offs. The below are either a) from a Danger employee, b) from a previous Danger employee, or c) directed at a Danger employee.
@ceejbot: Oh look, muscled goons walking around the building: layoffs today.
@ceejbot: My officemates all just got laid off. It doesn’t make any sense.
@ian: WTF? Microsoft is laying off awesome people from Danger.
@Perigosa: @jag Ugh. I am so sorry (for everyone else too).
@dangermikeb: Rough day at the office
@ahpook: Condolences to dangersoft peeps affected by layoffs, directly or otherwise.
@dangermikeb: The end of a crappy day at work.
that sucks about the danger layoffs. msft really had no clue what they wanted out of that, i guess. 
@akrasia: Suffocating sadness with a load of cookies.
@tuony: Condolences to Danger peeps who were laid off today. It’s never fun, however you may be considered the lucky ones after all is said and done
To add to this information, there was also an interesting comment conversation posted on an Engadget review of the new Sidekick LX 2009. No idea who “Aenar” is or where he is getting his information from, but he provokes some interesting conversation:
Aenar @ May 6th 2009 12:45PM
Enjoy the last sidekick. MSFT just fired the remaining SK staff with armed guards and only made this thing to avoid a lawsuit with TMobile.
Roz Ho congratukated the staff and then fired the employees for making it. MSFT just wanted the IP for WinMo anyway.
Now you get a seriously debilitated “PINK”device from MSFT as your next “upgrade.” From what I have heard, it’s a joke. No PIM apps and no 3rd party development system. A typical MSFT consumer product. Copy,rush to market and FAIL.
No street cred-get the iPhoneaenar @ May 6th 2009 3:29PM
Listen there are 200 employees there-in that old Sidekick division. They are hacked off and they talk smack on every message board,social net and twitter. In public. Microsoft has no intention of making another Sidekick. They wanted the service proxy patents and they want to let the CE product lines plus this wacko fantasy called PINK access the proxy. That way they have an instant message leg up on the iPhone which cannot do service-backed/proxy push notifications.
WINMO was horrified by the Sidekick Acquisition and they barked at Balmer to handcuff the PMX division OR the acquisition was just to kill a competitor to PINK off and snag the IP.
Inside talk is PINK is a barely functioning piece of junk-which is unlike the Sidekick. The Sidekick has a following and just needed some capital and decent management to make it a competitor. They have delivered and sold millions of these things and get a recurring service charge for each. UNLIKE the Microsoft consumer product which is 5 years late and billions short. C’mon- it’s a NETBSD Sidekick. There is no way, except for lawsuits threatened by TMobile, that Microsoft would want to sell a Sidekick. Tmobile needed another Sidekick on the way to transition to Google phone. There’s nothing that says a google phone cannot be a sidekick. That name is owned by TMobile.
LStrike @ May 6th 2009 3:58PM
Everything you are saying is hard to argue with but why don’t you provide a few sources with regards to the last of Danger employees being tossed?
Without sources it just sounds like conspiracy theory. If Microsoft has no intention on moving forward with Sidekick than why did they bother bundling in their own software on the phone (which I am sure they threw together resources to code) and promise Microsoft Exchange Support in the coming months?
If I am being sued into something I don’t want as a company I certainly am not going to make the product stronger no? Just because TMobile strong arms them into creating as you are saying a final product doesn’t force Microsoft to build more functionality.
No?
aenar @ May 6th 2009 7:12PM
There is no Exchange support coming for that particular device and if there was, that’s the internal team getting secure IMAP mail from a secure server. The Sidekick engineers, or any other device engineers, are smart enough to access the LIVE search API without getting too many MSFT employees involved- if any-because the Microsoft engineers are as dumb as the day is long. It’s just bits coming from a Microsoft server and the device application has to render them. Microsoft just opens the door-they didn’t do jack after that.
nolatron @ May 6th 2009 4:16PM
The entire SK team hasn’t been fired. I’m a contract worker for Danger via MS/Volt. Sa couple were let go, but not everyone, during a Microsoft company wide layoff.
aenar @ May 6th 2009 4:47PM
30-40 people were let go. The UI team, media teams, hardware and some associated PMs with the Sidekick. Shocking since Microsoft is mostly Political Project Managers with chips on their shoulders.
The remainder of the SK team that the PINK team needs to write in CE(not java or NetBSD) was moved to PINK or WINMO months ago. So the people who shut the lights off on the Sidekick were thanked in an email by the Roz “Dragon Woman” Ho and fired promptly. Then, to keep employees from going apeshitzz, they had the stormtroopers from Securitas(with arms this time) walk the halls and maintain control. Sort of like the Stazi.
So,
a) No more sidekicks. The people that made them are fired or working on the mirage of PINK,
b) Microsoft tried to weasel out of Danger’s contract with TMobile but were threatened with lawsuit
c) To make schedule, MSFT had to ship the Sidekick as designed at that point which was NetBSD and Java. VP of PMX was said to have cried at that announcement.That’s it. No more Sidekicks.
Naming sources? Do you work for the Dragon Lady-why would I call out these sources. So I can get more people fired? The information is 90% public domain from public feeds anyway.
We don’t want to cause anyone to panic, so we’re not going to make any rash assumptions about the future of the Sidekick. Just wanted to toss the information that’s flying around up for you guys. Feel free to speculate in the comments and if you have any hard and fast info, please email admin@hiptop3.com.
LStrike @ May 6th 2009 2:57PM
So that is the second time in these comments where someone claims this…Where is your source? Or are you the same dude that posted this earlier and just change your name?