[Infowarrior] - Microsoft buying Danger Inc

[Richard Forno]

Microsoft¹s Other Takeover Deal: Danger Inc.
February 11, 2008, 9:51 am

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/microsofts-other-takeover-deal-
danger-inc/?hp

Not everyone is so reluctant to be bought by Microsoft these days.

As Microsoft was bracing early Monday for a rejection from Yahoo, the
software giant announced another takeover deal ‹ a much smaller and
apparently much friendlier one. The company said it would buy Danger Inc.,
the Silicon Valley firm that created the Sidekick smart phone.

The deal, whose price wasn¹t disclosed, would seem to emphasize Microsoft¹s
increasingly aggressive acquisition strategy.

In an article Monday, The New York Times described the role of Microsoft¹s
chief financial officer, Christopher Liddell, a former banker from New
Zealand, in this transformation, which moves Microsoft away from a
³not-invented-here² culture to one that knows how to buy technology
elsewhere and integrate it.

Buying Danger could advance Microsoft¹s efforts to compete in the area of
providing consumer-friendly mobile applications.

Founded in 1999, Danger has a rich pedigree in the Valley: One of its
co-founders, Andy Rubin, is now Google¹s director of mobile platforms. Its
investors include a host of well-known venture firms, such as Redpoint
Ventures and Mobius Technology Ventures, and cell-phone giants such as
Motorola and T-Mobile. As of Sept. 30, Danger claimed more than 923,000
subscribers to its mobile-data services.

(Incidentally, the company¹s name has an interesting history as well: It is
a reference to the arm-waving warning from the robot in the campy television
series ³Lost in Space.²)

Selling a company to Microsoft can be a daunting decision for a relatively
small firm used to being its own boss. But these days, it may be a more
palatable option than seeking to go public.

Danger filed in December to raise as much as $100 million through a new
listing on the Nasdaq. Maybe the money-losing company saw January¹s choppy
markets ‹ which helped trigger a series of withdrawn public offerings ‹ and
found Microsoft¹s call more tempting than the alternatives.