Microsoft's spent $500 Million on Danger

[Rocco Augusto]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.yahoo.com/s/cnet/20080731/tc_cnet/83011386031000415856' target='_blank'>http://news.yahoo.com/s/cnet/200807...386031000415856</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"We had heard that Microsoft threw down a cool half billion to acquire Danger earlier this year, but quite honestly, we found it a bit tough to believe. After all, analysts are saying that even Motorola is barely worth that much. Regardless of all that, the outfit's latest quarterly report filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission affirms that it did indeed spend $500 million on Danger. That's a lot of jack, son."</em></p><p><br /><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/zt/auto/1218049308.usr8.jpg" border="1" /><br /><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">['Danger' is my middle name]</span></em></p><p><br />Not only did Microsoft pick up one super snazzy smartphone maker but when they spent a half billion dollars on purchasing a company with a name as awesome as this but I feel Microsoft bought the right to say that 'Danger' is your middle name. In fact, you can even say Microsoft eats Danger for breakfast... too much? Alright I&rsquo;ll stop now.</p>

[whydidnt]

I just wonder how much better off us WM users would be if MS had invested that 500 Mill in the WM platform over the last 5 years. Seems like a huge investment in technology that they could have designed themselves with some time and money, while building on their already semi-successful mobile platform.:rolleyes:

[alese]

I just wonder how much better off us WM users would be if MS had invested that 500 Mill in the WM platform over the last 5 years. Seems like a huge investment in technology that they could have designed themselves with some time and money, while building on their already semi-successful mobile platform.:rolleyes:

Couldn't agree more...
For part of this 500 mil they could release WM7 last year already and not be 2 years+ behind iPhone in user interface and then they could use the other part of the money to build the Danger like device if it's really that cool/good...

[Felix Torres]

MS has dropped similar sums on other companies before.
(WebTV, Great Plains, etc)
In every case, the reason for the "high" price was that they weren't just buying the product or the company, but also signing up the staff for the long haul.
So, yes; $500 million is a lot if all MS was buying was the phone and the name, but not excessive if you think of it as signing up the people who made the Danger hip and successful to design the new UI for WM7.
Worth remembering: half a billion is a couple weeks' profits for MS.:eek:

[wshwe]

The Sidekick fad has run its course. Microsoft is blowing huge wades of cash these days. $500 million on Danger, $300 million on Mojave, etc. MS was ready to waste billions on Yahoo. Danger's best people left the company years ago.

[khoss]

seems like a dinosaur to us middle aged geeks but we shouldn't forget that the iPhone was designed by middle aged geeks. I have three kids as does my girlfriend and considering that we work out of a home office we wind up seeing more kids than adults in the course of a day. We also reside in New York City in an area mostly occupied by people in their twenties and early thirties, Silicon Alley. Thumboards and SMS are king. Unlimited text is cheap, voice is expensive. You'll see a lot more Sidekicks than iPhones among the younger set and it isn't just price. I have heard on several occasions kids say that they hated touch screens; they're creepy. They use WM but smartphone not PPC. The other day a kid described my iPhone as an old man phone. Yeah, they're a few that have it as a status symbol but they seem to be loaners. I really believe MS may be on to the future here.
If my eyes weren't getting worse and my fingers bigger I'd probably would have stayed with my Treo 750. I'm not so sure that the iPhone IS where the future is.

[Torque]

Maybe Microsoft has a trick up it's sleeve with some sort of Windows Mobile 7 powered Danger Smartphone. Microsoft producing it's own Smartphone would of course compete with it's partners products. I can't see any of their partners being ok with that, unless they somehow worked out some sort of deal with them....