The Register’s Bill Ray has an article about what we might expect from Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Danger, maker of the popular Sidekick operating system.
It seems that, according to Ray, Microsoft’s looking to shift away from Windows Mobile as a user interface towards Windows Mobile as a platform upon which developers can overlay their own shell-like user interfaces, a strategy evidenced by Microsoft’s interoperability announcement earlier today. He likens it to how Windows 3.1 gave way to a host of alternative interfaces. I clearly remember Packard Bell Navigator as one such shell. That oughta date me. Anyone else use Packard Bell Navigator?
Microsoft may leverage Danger’s expertise in the proxy browsing and messaging areas that work so well on the Sidekick. I used the original Sidekick and the Sidekick II for quite a while and I miss the seamless synchronization of my e-mails and contacts to T-Mobile’s site. We might see something like that out of Microsoft in the near future.
Why is Microsoft dancing with Danger? [The Register]
I remember Packard Bell Navigator. A time before I knew what an OS really was. My favorite part of the Crapard Bell was the little colored accent pieces you could buy and replace on the desktop case. 2X CD-ROM! FTW!
SWEET! I wanna see Microsoft Bob on my Sidekick!
I don’t buy it. $500 million for some web proxying stuff? Not worth it. A small investment in Squid and some custom code would give you the same thing. They bought Danger for the OS and for the messaging. I think they are going to pull a Zune in the mobile phone space – new OS, different than their “partners”, no strings attached. In other words, leave “old and busted” for the other guys and take the “new hotness” for themselves.
There is one thing that no one has mentioned that I am curious about. How hard would it be to port the Danger API to .NET Compact Framework? It’s all in Java, so it should be a fairly painless port to C#. Makes you wonder…
Yahoo…Microsoft Yahoo…Danger is my middle name…
There are times when Microsoft just doesn’t know what to do… this is one of them!