Danger, Inc.
 | |
| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Software, services |
| Founded | December 9, 1999 |
| Founders | Andy Rubin Joe Britt Matt Hershenson |
| Defunct | February 28, 2011 |
| Fate | Merged with Microsoft |
| Successor | Microsoft Mobile |
| Headquarters | Palo Alto, California, US |
Key people |
|
| Parent | Microsoft |
| Website | www.danger.com at the Wayback Machine (archived April 26, 2011) |
Danger, Inc. was a company specializing in hardware design, software, and services for mobile computing devices. Founded on December 9, 1999, its most notable product was the T-Mobile Sidekick (also known as Danger Hiptop), a popular early smartphone. The Sidekick or Hiptop was an early example of client–server ("cloud"-based) smartphones and created the App (Applications) marketplace, later popularized by Android and iOS. Danger was acquired by Microsoft on February 11, 2008, for a price rumored to be around $500 million;[1] however, due to a loss of data occurring on October 12, 2009, the company closed its doors on February 28, 2011.
History
[edit]The company was originally started by former Apple Inc., WebTV and Philips employees Andy Rubin, Joe Britt, and Matt Hershenson. Co-founder Andy Rubin left in 2003 to create the company Android, which was later acquired by Google.[2]
After the Microsoft acquisition in 2008, the former Danger staff were absorbed into the Mobile Communications Business (MCB) of the Microsoft Entertainment and Devices Division, where they worked on a future mobile phone platform known as "Project Pink" which would eventually be released as Kin.[3] This line of mobile phones was a commercial failure, and production was ceased just a few weeks after its release. The Kin development team was folded into the Windows Phone team, and Microsoft stopped promoting the devices.[4]
By October 2009, most of the ex-Danger employees had left Microsoft.[5] Until March 2013, Rubin headed Android development, and brought former Danger Director of Design Matias Duarte to Google.
The Register described the Microsoft acquisition as "a classic case of M & A failure, where the acquirer has failed to integrate either the technology or the people from the company that it bought."[6] Later on September 3, 2013, Microsoft purchased Nokia's mobile phone business, which is also seen as a failure.[7]
October 2009 data loss
[edit]On October 12, 2009, a server malfunction or technician error at Danger's data centers resulted in the loss of all Sidekick user data. As Sidekick phones store users' data on Danger's servers—versus using local storage—users lost contact directories, calendars, photos, and all other media not locally backed up. Local backup could be accomplished through an app ($9.99 USD) which synchronized contacts, calendar, and tasks, between the web and a local Windows PC. Notes could not be backed up, however; on October 10, 2009, T-Mobile sent a letter to its subscribers, informing that Microsoft expressed its doubt that any data would be recovered.[8]
The customer's data that was lost was, at the time, being hosted in Microsoft's data centers.[9] Some media reports have suggested that Microsoft hired Hitachi to perform an upgrade to its storage area network (SAN), when something went wrong, resulting in data destruction.[10] Microsoft did not have an active backup of the data and it had to be restored from a month-old copy of the server data, totalling 800GB in size, from offsite backup tapes. The entire restoration of data took over two months for customer data and full functionality to be restored.[11]
The Danger/Sidekick episode is one in a series of cloud computing mishaps that have raised questions about the reliability of such offerings.[12]
References
[edit]- ^ Rosoff, Matt (March 8, 2011). "Microsoft's Biggest Acquisitions And What Happened To Them". Business Insider.
- ^ "THE RISE OF ANDROID: How a flailing startup became the world's biggest computing platform". Business Insider France (in French). March 27, 2015. Retrieved January 4, 2018.
- ^ "Microsoft's Pink Struggles Spill Over To Sidekick". ChannelWeb. UMB. October 12, 2009. Archived from the original on July 20, 2010.
- ^ Todd Bishop (June 30, 2010). "Confirmed: Microsoft Kin is dead". TechFlash.
- ^ "The Sidekick catastrophe: A curse for Microsoft, but a blessing for Motorola?". Betanews. October 12, 2009.
- ^ "Dead Pink phone fallout hits Microsoft's top brass". The Register. July 8, 2010.
- ^ Sarkhel, Aritra (June 22, 2016). "Microsoft's 5 worst acquisitions ever". The Economic Times. Archived from the original on August 1, 2020.
- ^ "T-Mobile Sidekick Disaster: Danger's Servers Crashed, And They Don't Have A Backup". TechCrunch. October 10, 2009. Retrieved June 14, 2013.
- ^ "Danger no backups". The Inquirer. October 12, 2009. Archived from the original on October 13, 2009.
- ^ "Sidekick failure rumors point fingers at outsourcing, lack of backups". engadget. October 11, 2009.
- ^ "Microsoft's Danger Problem Blamed on Management". RoughlyDrafted. October 15, 2009. Archived from the original on December 20, 2009. Retrieved January 6, 2010.
- ^ "From Sidekick to Gmail: A short history of cloud computing outages". NetworkWorld. October 12, 2009.
- Former Microsoft subsidiaries
- 1999 establishments in California
- 2008 mergers and acquisitions
- 2009 disestablishments in California
- American companies established in 1999
- American companies disestablished in 2009
- Companies based in Palo Alto, California
- Computer companies established in 1999
- Computer companies disestablished in 2009
- Defunct computer companies of the United States
- Defunct computer hardware companies
- Defunct software companies of the United States
- Mobile phone manufacturers