Microsoft hopes to tap that experience to deliver “innovative and compelling” mobile experiences with the acquisition of Danger, the maker of T-Mobile Sidekick and HipHop devices and platform/network.

“Sidekick has had tremendous appeal to a number of demographics. It was appealing to the Hollywood crowd. It was appealing to the music crowd and, of course, all those people who aspired to be like those icons. It was the Paris Hilton cell phone of choice,” Gartenberg said. “Microsoft needs to be careful not to mess with a good thing by trying to roll this under the Windows Mobile umbrella.”

— Michael Gartenberg, Analyst at JupiterResearch.
 

Video tour of instant messaging on Sidekick LX from itsonlyatest.

Quick look at settings for AIM (AOL Instant Messaging), Live Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger.

Keywords: America Online Instant Messaging, formerly MSN Messenger

Sidekick is filled with features and carefully designed to help you access the people, things and information you need on the go — as they say “stay superconnected.” The Danger Hiptop, also sold as the T-Mobile Sidekick, is a GPRS/EDGE mobile phone with wireless Internet capabilities and some functionality similar to a PDA. The Hiptop is sold by T-Mobile in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Austria. SunCom used to sell the device in some parts of the U.S., and Fido is the exclusive Hiptop carrier in Canada—sales in Canada were discontinued after Fido was bought by Rogers Communications, at the end of the hiptop2’s life; this is partially because the Hiptop is a competitor to Rogers’ BlackBerry business. In Germany, the Hiptop service is also offered by E-Plus including a flat rate tariff. In Australia, the Hiptop device and service are sold by Telstra.
The Hiptop software was originally designed by the company Danger, Inc., which is located in Palo Alto, California. The original Sidekick hardware was designed by Danger and manufactured by Flextronics.

The Sidekick 2, 3, and iD are manufactured by Sharp Corporation in Japan and designed, respectively, by Danger and then Danger in partnership with Sharp. All versions of the Sidekick were developed in close partnership with T-Mobile. Danger provides the Hiptop OS software and back-end services for the device. These include a catalog of downloadable software applications, email hosting, instant messaging and web proxies.

As of September 30, 2007, Danger, Inc. had 923,000 subscribers. The Sidekick is a favorite of the Hollywood set. RIM/Blackberry subscriptions are at about 8 million users at the end of 2007.

Check this column for all types of reports on the T-Mobile Sidekicks: new features, discovered features, cool ways to use, reliability, T-Mobile service, network coverage, new applications, and more.

See also …
Sidekick.com  | myspace.com/sidekick | tmobile.com
myspace.com/sidekicknation | danger.com | poweredbydanger.com

Hiptop3.com (unofficial info and rumors site)

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