With the acquisition of Sidekick-maker Danger and the proposed bid for Yahoo, Microsoft is looking at taking on a whole lot of non-Windows technology, CNET News blogger Ina Fried writes. So it makes sense that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, speaking at the Mix '08 conference, said that, "assuming Yahoo ever starts returning Microsoft's phone calls," Microsoft will choose to go with Microsoft-developed services in some areas and Yahoo-developed ones in other areas.

"We should not have two of everything," Ballmer said. "We'll have to sort some of that through." Specifics were still AWOL, but we know that MS likes Yahoo's advertising platform, and we're really curious what Microsoft would do with Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail. (We expect both of those to last; it's not going to be easy to get nearly 300 million users worldwide to drop one or the other.)

Meanwhile, regarding Danger, Ballmer said that Microsoft was attracted to the way the Sidekick gets applications and data to its users as well as the consumer interface and appeal, the article said. "Danger is really a service application experience and we want to make sure we get that in market on a great set of phones," he said.