Om Malik from Gigaom writes:
"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."
New report from Skillsearch found that 22% of those surveyed had been laid off within the past 12 months.
It's a step forward for Stop Killing Games.
The Callisto Protocol director thinks the solution involves the right people, the right timing, and perhaps a little bit of AI
I don't agree with that. I WISH I could agree with that. But buying habits and customer opinions prove otherwise
We've seen developers in the AAA space try new things and ideas. More often than not, the customers aren't willing to give things a chance, or not enough people buy into the project for it to grow.
Creativity works better in the indie space because the budgets, pressures, and expectations aren't the same.
it's a nice idea and it worked during the PS2/PS3-era when AAA didn't cost hundreds of millions of dollars. smaller budgets and shorter development time left room for more creativity and more risk. a game didn't need to sell 4 million+ copies to break even. things are different now.
This is the guy who bragged about crunching his staff and having them work through the night. Crunch culture has lost more talent and done more damage to the industry than any other factor. Screw him.
I wonder if MS will really try to create a handheld...
SPending a lot of money in every division, and having nearly every project they have as of late fail. Xbox 360 sold less than PS3 in PS3s worst year, Zune is a failure, Vista isn't selling the way it should and isn't working the way it should, their search engine can't compete and they're struggling to buy another, gmail is much better and loads faster than hotmail, same with firefox... can they really do anything good? I can't wait till there's a killer alternative for everything that keeps Microsoft in their throne, i.e. Microsoft Office and Windows, i.e. a better office and gaming platform. Will it be Mac, will it be Linux, or will it be the internet? I vote for the last one. Wikipedia FTW.
Hmm I wonder what that means for other phones that uses Windows Mobile if MS starts creating their own. I effin hate sidekicks with a passion so I hope they don't try to offer us some bastardized Windows version of those. And I'm not going back to regular phones, I NEEDS mah Windows Mobile.
Microsoft + Sidekick = Sidekick Vista with a buggy ass OS