I kept asking myself why Microsoft would acquire Danger Inc. The company (Danger Inc.) is a mobile device manufacturer that makes the popular HipTop / Sidekick mobile phones is a heavy Java user. Danger Inc is actually a licensee of J2ME. Why would Microsoft acquire a company that uses heavily uses Java on its mobile phones? I tried to search the Internet for answers.

Microsoft must have offered a substantial amount to Danger Inc. — they don’t seem to be in trouble, they were able to raise 130 million in venture capital. They have filed for a 100 million in IPO last December. Everything seems to be doing good and now this?

First Microsoft makes a bid for Yahoo and then acquires Danger Inc.? The company is probably worth less than a billion in terms of capitalization.

The other angle is maybe Microsoft is interested in one or more of it’s intellectual properties. So I went and search.

I was surprised to find out that Danger Inc. actually have patents to it’s name. So far, I found 4 US patents and 1 Canadian patent:

1. US 7,183,481 B2 - Apparatus and method for embedding content within a MIDI data stream
2. US 7,224,373 B1 - Adjustable data processing display
3. US 7,262,761 B1 - User interface for detecting a data entry mode
4. US 7,305,631 B1 - Integrated motion sensor for a data processing device
5. CA 2459298 - Transcoding Of Telephone Numbers To Links In Received Web Pages

Danger actually owns patents related to mobile devices and there may be more. Is Microsoft interested in them?

Surely, they’re not interested in Java because they have their own mobile platform.

Rubin and partners starts Danger Inc. to create HipTop/SideKick, Rubin leaves to start his own company Android, Google acquires Android. Danger Inc. files for 100 million dollar IPO, Microsoft acquires Danger Inc!

Really, why buy a company that has heavily invested in Java as a platform? What do you think?