Microsoft has agreed to buy Silicon Valley–based Danger, maker of the software that drives T-Mobile’s Sidekick Web phone and runs Google’s new mobile venture.
Microsoft did not disclose the purchase price on Monday for privately held Danger.
The company, co-founded by Andy Rubin, specializes in software and services designed for the mobile Internet and is best known for the Sidekick, also known as the Hiptop.
“With all the excitement about what’s going on in the company right now, this is critical to our future and decisive for our future,” said Robbie Bach, Microsoft’s president of entertainment and devices.
[cob:Related_Articles]”It completes the picture for us in terms of making the transition from just being on the business side of things to being on the consumer side of things,” he told a news conference at the Mobile World Congress wireless fair in Barcelona.
Microsoft did not take questions on Yahoo’s rejection of its cash-and-shares takeover bid, now valued at $42 billion.
Yahoo lags behind Google in desktop computer Web search but is making strides in mobile search and other mobile services.
Google also created waves at Mobile World Congress on Monday, as several of its partners demonstrated prototypes of its mobile phone software platform, Android.
The Android project is being led by Rubin and is beginning to have a disruptive influence on traditional relationships among telecom carriers, handset makers, software developers and consumers.
