Delivered a variety of projects for the predecessor of the modern iPhone and Android devices. Enhanced Danger’s engineering capabilities, helped meet cost and time-to-market targets. Danger project is a wonderful part of Waverley history, one of the earliest works in mobile development.
was an integrated mobile internet software and services company (pre-iPhone) that brought voice and messaging, web browsing, and personalized services to a hand-held mobile device called the Hiptop. Later rebranded as the T-Mobile Sidekick and Mobiflip, the Danger smartphone was produced from 2002 to 2009, and the underlying technology was acquired by Microsoft in 2008. Later systems like Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android stood on the shoulders of these pioneers (Danger’s co-founder Andy Rubin had worked at Apple and General Magic and went on to found Android, Inc which was purchased by Google in 2005).
In the years leading up to Apple’s introduction of its iOS and iPhone (2001-07), several technologies were competing to establish themselves in the as-yet-unclaimed smartphone space. Many of these efforts relied on offshore and outsourced talent to meet cost and time-to-market objectives. Waverley Software’s involvement with Danger is part of our history of engagement with the very earliest efforts to popularize mobile computing, starting with the applications Matt Brown wrote for the Apple Newton in the 1990s. Danger contracted with Waverley to obtain expert and cost-effective help to enhance its engineering capabilities and to meet cost and time-to-market targets. The engagement needed to be seamless, easy to manage, cost effective, and capable of adding value rapidly.
Waverley and Danger followed the “crawl, walk, run” model, starting with a small team coming up to speed learning Danger’s code and development processes on-site with minimal hand-holding from Danger’s very busy engineering team. The Waverley team travelled from Eastern Europe to Danger’s Palo Alto, California offices working on knowledge transfer, team-building and other activities to establish competence, create trust and launch the relationship. Once the team began to integrate into the engineering organization and prove its value, it grew in size and depth, working on a variety of projects.
