Trying to further extend its expertise in the mobile market, Microsoft announced the acquisition of Danger, the makers of the homonym platform which runs on Sidekick devices.

Danger was founded in December 1999 and it is focused on developing the Danger mobile Internet platform, which is a Java-compatible, client/server software infrastructure and application suite that delivers an easy-to-use, personalized experience.

The company is especially for its Sidekick devices sold in the US by T-Mobile, in the United Kingdom under the T-Mobile Sidekick Slide brand and in Australia as the hiptop Slide from Telstra.

In November 2007, T-Mobile has launched Sidekick Slide and Sidekick LX. Sidekick Slide with a higher resolution screen at 320x240 pixels and 65,000 colors, but has a lousy 1.3Mpx camera that cannot record videos. Sidekick Slide operates as a quad-band phone and as a small portable media center, being able to play MP3 and AAC files stored on a microSD card and even play videos from the Web, thanks to the improved Web-browser with JavaScript support.

LX is a high-end Sidekick with an enhanced 3-inch, 65,000-color TFT display and 400x240 pixel resolution.

Both phones are Danger-powered and include HTML Web browsing, instant messaging, games, multimedia, social networking, Web e-mail and personal information management applications.

The Danger devices are manufactured by Sharp and Motorola. According to Microsoft’s statement Danger will be added to the Entertainment and Devices division

"Danger continues to provide an effortless and fun mobile experience for consumers," said Henry R. Nothhaft, chairman and CEO of Danger Inc. "Now by combining our uncompromised application software and powerful back-end service with Microsoft, we can expand our innovative service offerings even further and take mobility to a new level."

It seems like the acquisition will be just another brick for the foundation of the “Connected Entertainment” concept. Under this concept Microsoft is promoting various hardware and software assets such as Windows Mobile, Zune, MSN and Windows Live.

Last year Microsoft announced the acquisition of the French company Musiwave, a provider of mobile music entertainment services to operators and media companies.

Musiwave is responsible for a variety of products and services such as MODS (Music on Demand Service) a solution based upon Musiwave's Music Player, SDC’s Java DRM solution, and Coding Technology's AAC+ optimized audio codec. The service works on Symbian devices such as Siemens SX1, Nokia 3650, 3660, N-Gage and other Series 60 handsets.