Microsoft Uses Its Most Powerful Tool Again

Although I’m sure that many will believe the reference above is to that three letter acronym FUD (fear-uncertainty-doubt), it is in fact, the five-letter word, MONEY, to which I was referring.

As many who follow these things know, Microsoft has always been a company less inclined to innovation, and much more inclined to acquisition. It began with the first operating system, and has continued until now, with the most recent high profile acquisition being the piece of software called Windows Defender. This was a piece of software originally called Giant Antispyware, and Microsoft liked it enough to buy Giant outright, changing the name and calling it Windows Defender. The references are probably gone by now, but the first 2 revisions of Defender still had the phrase ‘Giant Software’ in the executable - easily seen by anyone with a raw file viewer.

Now, Microsoft is a company of very large egos. One might wonder how so many large egos fit in one space without explosion or meltdown. From the couple of people I have personally spoken to over the years, it has not been easy. It must have really frosted Microsoft when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone, and then things were made much worse when the device proved to be wildly popular.

Imagine this as a touch screen, with the Microsoft logo on it.

Again, in that spirit of acquisition as the most formidable tool, Microsoft has bought Danger, a little known company name to most, but the creator of the very popular, very user-friendly Sidekick phone, hawked by T-Mobile. The Sidekick is a phone that uses some very good ergonomics, along with some fairly cheesy electronics - phone reception and transmission, always secondary to its intended target market, was never at the top in performance. To the intended users, that never mattered.

What will undoubtedly happen now is the refinement of the circuitry will take place, and Microsoft will keep the ergonomics of the phone, probably adding a touch screen, and call it a Microsoft invention. It will probably be very good, as Microsoft has rarely faltered when it comes to hardware - just look at the long line of winning mice and keyboards.

A Sidekick that says Microsoft on it, with a touch screen, and running Windows Mobile - it could happen, and most likely will.

What will happen to the Sidekick is anybody’s guess, but I would be looking  further than that. It is a well known fact that T-Mobile has been shopped by the parent company to several prospective buyers, none of which had the capital to make the purchase.

What about Microsoft? Would it not make sense for Microsoft to sell a phone, and offer the service for that phone? Microsoft end-to-end would be very appealing to all the egos in Redmond, especially Darth Ballmer. In one swoop Microsoft would have a huge cash cow, and one-up Apple and Steve Jobs in a huge way.

Start buying the stock now.

-

[tags] Microsoft, Danger, Sidekick, T-Mobile, Apple, iPhone [/tags]