Microsoft suggested in an Oct. 18 statement that it will restore lost personal data for
T-Mobile Sidekick users starting this week. A server malfunction at Microsoft
subsidiary Danger Inc. earlier this month had deleted information stored on the
devices of some 800,000 Sidekick owners.
"We continue to make steady progress, and we hope to be able
to begin restoring personal contacts for affected users this week," reads the
Microsoft statement, which was posted on
the T-Mobile Forums, "with the remainder of the content (photographs, notes,
to-do-lists, marketplace data, and high scores) shortly
thereafter."
The statement finishes with the inevitable: "We appreciate
your ongoing patience."
The T-Mobile Website continues to list Sidekick smartphones
as "Temporarily Out of Stock," with sales likely suspended until the data
service is fully restored. T-Mobile is keeping tight-lipped on a road map for
reintroducing the devices to market.
"We're pleased that Microsoft/Danger is continuing to make
progress," David Beigie, vice president of corporate communications for
T-Mobile, wrote in response to eWEEK’s question about Sidekick sales
resuming. "T-Mobile’s sole focus remains on helping Sidekick customers
recover from this
disruption."
Microsoft's current claims about a full data restore paint a
somewhat rosier picture for Sidekick users previously told, in a statement
issued by T-Mobile on Oct. 10, that their personal data had been permanently
lost.
"Based on Microsoft/Danger’s latest recovery assessment of
their systems, we must now inform you that personal information stored on your
device … almost certainly has been lost as a result of server failure at
Microsoft/Danger," read that missive.
Microsoft
engineers were already scrambling to locate the cause of the problem,
isolating it as a hardware issue. In response to that discovery, an Oct. 12
posting on the T-Mobile Website told users to not turn off their Sidekick or
remove the battery, which would force the device to attempt to sync with servers
no longer holding their data.
By Oct. 15, the situation seemed somewhat more under control.
"We are pleased to report that we have recovered most, if not
all, customer data for those Sidekick customers whose data was affected by the
recent outage," Roz Ho, corporate vice president for Microsoft’s Premium Mobile
Experiences, wrote in an Oct. 15
statement on the T-Mobile Forum. "We plan to begin restoring users’ personal
data as soon as possible, starting with personal contacts, after we have
validated the data and our restoration plan."
Ho also indicated that the server failure had been
catastrophic, with data loss not only in the servers’ core database, but also
the back-up. The system is currently being rebuilt component by component in
order to recover the user data; however, Ho’s statement declined to elaborate on
whether Hitachi Data Systems, which
had reportedly been involved in upgrading the Sidekick SAN at around the time of
the server failure, had a role in the incident.
The loss of personal data quickly led to questions about
Microsoft’s protocols for redundancy and server failure issues, and whether the
involvement of any third parties may have escalated the risks of system crash.
A report previously published by Reuters indicated that the
servers holding the Sidekick data were a proprietary system belonging to Danger
Inc., a Microsoft subsidiary acquired by Redmond in 2008. Danger Inc.
originally made its name by providing software and services for mobile handsets,
although many of its original employees reportedly left the company or were
absorbed into other Microsoft business units following the deal.
If so, a loss of Danger Inc. employees could have
potentially affected the handling of the proprietary system.
"There are reports that Microsoft perhaps removed certain
individuals or technologists from the Danger staff in order to support other
mobile computing initiatives, and that left them short-handed," Erik Laykin, an
analyst with the Global Electronic Discovery and Investigations group at Duff
& Phelps, an independent financial advisory and investment bank, said in an
interview with eWEEK. "If that happened, it’s certainly possible that it could
have left them vulnerable. I’ve seen a similar thing with organizations that try
to support systems on shortened staff."
Over the long term, the Sidekick incident could potentially
affect Project
Pink, Microsoft’s much-rumored branded smartphone. Although Microsoft itself
has repeatedly refused to comment on the rumors, sites such as 9to5Mac have
alleged that Microsoft and its Danger Inc. team have been developing two
smartphones that could roll out in early 2010.
The CES trade show, slated for early January 2010 in Las
Vegas, could very well be where Microsoft decides to debut such a device, which
would compete against well-established offerings from Apple, Palm and Research
In Motion’s BlackBerry line. In what could perhaps be regarded as a bit of
irony, reports have suggested that both devices could have a sliding form-factor
reminiscent of the Sidekick.
Enterprise Mobility News & Reviews 
