So now that Microsoft has acquired danger, what will they do with the device and its OS? Well yours truly has a suggestion for Microsoft (not that they listen), as to how to best exploit and expand the platform!

Section 1: Device Hardware

Hardware needs to be improved, no doubt about it. First thing that Microsoft needs to do is to make quadband GSM and quadband HSPA a standard in all danger devices so that they have a global reach.

Secondly they finally need to add WiFi to all of their devices. WiFi is now a staple of pretty much all smartphones, and if Microsoft wants to capture the younger users AND maintain them and not see the SK as juvenile, they need to add wifi.

Third, they need a touch screen on the device. Dialing the device is a pain in the butt. With a touch screen this is taken care of, and it opens the door for more innovation.

Fourth: add GPS. Location based services are a must have for an always on-device like the sidekick

Fifth: use dedicated media/video chips to improve media playback and battery life.

Sixth: Number of devices - just have two, the classical form factor and the Slide form factor. No need to dilute your market. Special editions are OK.

Finally, add a front camera for video chat and video calling.


Section 2: Software


The first step for Microsoft would be to make a more generic OS similar to what other smartphone operating systems do and then add themes and customizations to the device, but make it so a customization does not impede the customer's ability to take this device from one carrier to another

The second thing they need to work on is full unicode input and localization of the OS. While the sidekick is available in English, German and probably Dutch, it needs more local support to be rolled out globally.

The third thing is Exchange support. In the mail client support exchange fully, just as if it were a windows mobile device. This will make it attractive to the enterprise.

Add a bit of social flair to it: social networks are all the rage today, from facebook and myspace to linkedin and friendfeed. How about being able to log into your social networks, and microblogs and get a feed of what your contacts are up to?

Add a blogging client: Do you use blogger? LiveSpaces? Live Journal? Wordpress? No matter what you use, a blogging client should be available to use out of the box.

Add better media capability: video and music playback, as well as youtube, vimeo and hulu (just a thought) should be standard on this device.


Section 3: Services

One of the great things about the sidekick in the early days was that the internet and IM was patched through a danger server which optimized websites for the sidekick browser and kept a messaging service running, so if you were offline with your sidekick (a dead-spot or something) people could still IM you and you would get the IMs when you came back into service. This is something apple is trying to do today (with the IM bit).

This is a good idea, but it is implemented poorly. At the moment the carrier has control of that service, not Microsoft, which means I can only use my sidekick on T-mobile, not at&t, not rogers, not on cosmote when I travel to Greece.

Microsoft needs to decouple this from the carrier so a sidekick can run on any carrier, but still sees the benefits of messaging services (and possibly streamlined websites, although I prefer the real web experience of an iPhone to that of the blackberry and sidekick).

The other function of this server is to keep your contacts, emails, photos and PIM data backed up on the cloud. Again, when this came out in 2001 it was revolutionary, these days Apple and Google have joined the game in the consumer arena. Microsoft should decouple this PIM/media functionality from the carrier and tie it into their Live services (and if they feel up to it support syncing to google and yahoo). This means that now anyone can purchase a sidekick, and a plain jane data plan and with their live account they can use the device to its full capability.


Section 4: PR

The sidekick and the danger OS suffer from juvenile disorder. A grown man (even if the software were available) could not be caught with a sidekick because it's deemed to be a kid phone. Microsoft needs to fix this in order to make the device accessible to to a wider demographic.