Sounds like The Beast from Redmond is trying to keep up with the SUPER BEAST from Stanford. I think we are going to be needing some kind of google icon soon. I wonder at what point does the SEC or Gov step in. Oh wait they won't. Next on the SUPER BEASTS list TV. Apple needs to watch out.

"The addition of Danger serves as a perfect complement..."

Is it perfect complement to other M$ products because Danger is capable of writing easily hacked software?

To be fair, if memory serves correctly - everyone's favourite Heiress used her extremely well publicised dog's name as her 'secret question'.

Danger can hardly be blamed for the weakest link.

Just read a news story linked from Groklaw about the Yahoo bid "Microsoft's $80 Billion (and Growing) Yahoo Headache". MS has taken a 13% hit on it's stock value, so the question is how much of Bill Gates personal fortune just went south and is he now only the third richest man on the planet?

Mr. Smiley, just because. Tee hee.

... Danger was always built into Microsoft's software...

This is good news for consumers. Microsoft are clearly panicking at Apple's strong entry into the phone market. So Microsoft are going to have to strengthen their shonky clunky useless offering, and Apple will in turn reciprocate.

Which should hopefully mean we all get better designed handsets and software sooner rather than later.

For what it's worth I can't see myself ever buying a Microsoft (or Danger Inc.) powered handset though.

Their recent flurry of acquisitions resembles AOL's sudden push to acquire Time Warner back in 2000.

Steve Case saw the writing on the wall, both for dial-up and the dotcom bubble, and merged the transient value of AOL stock with Time Warner. After the bubble burst, the new AOL Time-Warner took a big hit, but not the headshot AOL alone would have taken.

So, what exactly does Microsoft see looming that has them grabbing at acquisitions before their value slips away? What's supposed to happen this summer when Billy says aloha?

(I haven't a clue, but then I rarely do!)

It seems weird, MS wants to compete (at the same time) with Google, Nokia-Siemens and other MS independent phone vendors, Linux, Sun, IBM, Sony, Apple and even HP (in systems management and no match to NonStop yet but maybe later?). Not small companies! I'm not so sure that even they have resources for that and definitely they don't have the management infrastructure currently. Maybe they are doing the right thing - buy the knowledge but it will take time to put that all together and in their current confusion, what is important and what is not, doesn't seem too promising.

But haven't they always tried to compete with everyone else at the same time with their own proprietary solutions? I mean if you're trying to take over the world and have everybody use M$ and only M$, you've can't just half compete, can you?

What with Google Android and Nokia buying Trolltech, this stinks of desperation from Microsoft. They can see they will be at least third in the market and will trail further and further behind the pack leaders.

Paris: Because she is desperate and rapidly losing money in the near future

Exactly. They're acting like a more paranoid Borg on steroids, but they're trying to project "We Are The World" to the buying sheeple. It will be interesting to see how long they can keep that schizophrenia "working"...