Could Danger be moving to Cingular?
By Ryan Block 
posted Mar 24th 2006 9:06AM
posted Mar 24th 2006 9:06AM
Now, we don't want to jump to
conclusions or anything here, but we have to admit we find it a little, um, interesting that Danger announced yesterday
the opening of a new engineering center in Duluth, Georgia. Duluth, eh? Why, wouldn't that be a suburb of Atlanta,
Georgia? Why, yes, it would. And which major wireless company is based in the ATL? Cingular, of course. Take that for
what it is, of course; with Cingular in town, we're sure there are a lot of good mobile engineers around, but you know
what they say about smoke and fire, right? Wouldn't surprise us one bit if Cingular was doing their best to swipe the
one hot-selling exclusive T-Mobile's got -- or already did.[Thanks, Eric]
that would piss me off big time people because one of the reason y I swith to t mobile was for the sidekick service and the upcoming sidekick 3
Actually it's only Software. A few months ago Panasonic mobile closed in Suwanee GA. Now a lot of those Software folks are going to be working for Danger.
The office was located in Duluth because many of the former Panasonic people did not want to relocate from the Atlanta area to California. Several people at Panasonic approached Danger about just opening a satelite office in Atlanta instead of relocating that many people to Cali.
Well, the vast majority of what Danger does is software. They farm out manufacturing to Sharp, etc. anyway.
So the fact that it's software-based doesn't prevent a Cingular alliance.
I don't know... T-Mobile probably has an exclusive because nobody else wants the Sidekick (which Danger actually calls the HipTop). The other likely reason that T-Mobile got it is that T-Mobile's parent company (Deutsch Telekom) is also an investor in Danger.
Actually the investor list for Danger is a erqlly interesting read (see http://www.danger.com/about/invest.php)...
Softbank - who just bought Vodafone's Japanese operations
Motorola - who has a crappy crappy crappy OS and UI on their handsets
Orange - which is France Telecom's mobile phone subsidiary
Given those investors I would have expected the HipTop to pop up on Orange before showing up on Cingular. I bet Duluth Resident is right - Danger had an opportunity to snag a bunch of developers that really know mobile phone and took it.
I thought Sunn Comm sold the the SideKick under its Danger given name of Hiptop?
Interesting!
I live in Duluth and drive by the PAN building daily. So did panasonic sell that part of the business to Danger or does anyone even know?
What would keep Cing and T-mo from both selling the device, does it have to be exclusive?
No Panasonic didn't sell. Just closed the mobile phone development unit in Suwanee, GA. The people just moved to danger due to similar type of work.
I don't think they are going to pick up Cingular. Why? Don't you think Danger would have done it by now? It's been a few years since Danger launched the first HipTop/Sidekick. I really dout that they are going to Cingular. Also, I worked for T-Mobile. Because of T-Mobile, people are buying the Sidekick 2 as if it were crack. With the upcoming Sidekick 3, it's going to push new & existing T-Mobile customers to buy the device, which means that Danger will make WAY more money. Either way, Cingular will probably never have the unlimited data plan that T-Mobile can offer. Try to think about that for a while.
Cingular isn't the only major US carrier with offices in Duluth/ATL area. Sprint/Nextel also have major offices there, though I doubt they would ever add the hiptop to their line of phones.
That Would be great! I have cingular right now and i love it..but they do not have sidekick so this would be a dream come true if Danger moves to Cingular.
I've read that Danger has been struggling to pick up additional mobile operators. T-Mobile's venture capital notwithstanding, it is in the company's larger interest to grow and take on a larger operator.
And, there's been no real confirmation that the Sidekick 3 even will come to exist. T-Mobile may just throw their efforts behind the MDA... Especially if Cingular comes out with a Danger product.
Hmm..speculation is speculation. By the way, T-Mobile's return center is in GA too.