When Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) announced that it was buying Danger, the maker of the pop-culture cellphone icon, the sparse press release failed to mention anything about how much it might be paying. GigaOm is reporting today that it totaled $500 million.
What we knew about the Palo Alto-based company was that it was seeking $100 million in an initial public offering to support its unprofitable operations. Most of the company’s revenues were coming from T-Mobile USA, where the Sidekick device had developed a fanatic celebrity following and even became fodder for rap lyrics. More recently, T-Mobile and Danger had started to expand the line to include low-end cheaper devices that didn’t have a camera and high-end smaller devices that were more attractive to adults. One of the nice things about the device is its fun user interface that includes flashing lights and plenty of beeping reminders. But also, more practically, the device works well because of its server services, which make it faster even though most of them run on the Edge or GPRS networks.
GigaOm also speculates on why Microsoft may be attracted to the company other than for its consumer attributes. He said: “The deal
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