Posted 10/20/09 at 11:14:09 AM by Paul Lilly

Sidekick users feeling scorned over their recent data loss can take a huge sigh of relief today, as Microsoft announced it has begun the first phase of the content restoration process. Personal contacts will be the first bits of data to be restored.

In order to get your data back, you'll need to log into the My T-Mobile website and download the recovery tool. Microsoft says the tool will enable you to view the contacts you had saved as of October 1. With a few simple mouse clicks and a confirmation, those contacts will be restored to your Sidekick.

Naturally, most Sidekick owners have probably already recreated some of the same contacts since the data disaster. If that's the case, you have the option of keeping both sets of contacts, merging them, or just keep whatever contacts are currently on your device.

So what about the rest of your data?

"We continue to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to restore your data," Microsoft said. "We're making solid progress on the next phase in the restoration process, including your photographs, notes, to-do lists, marketplace data, and high scores."

Phew! Glad to see that "high scores" is included in the fray!

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Posted 10/16/09 at 01:46:42 PM by Paul Lilly

Put away the pitchforks for a moment, because that whole data loss thing involving the Sidekick and Microsoft's Danger unit might not be the Redmond company's fault after all. So who is to blame? Oracle, Linux, and Sun, Microsoft said in not so many words.

"Sidekick runs on Danger's proprietary service that Microsoft inherited when it acquired Danger in 2008. The Danger service is built on a mix of Danger created technologies and third party technologies," Microsoft explained to TGDaily. "Microsoft's other cloud computing projects are totally separate from the Danger Service and do not rely on the Danger Service technology."

There's actually a whole lot more to the story for anyone who cares to read through it all, including a possible sabotage scenario. In short, this could be a situation where it was simply easier to point the finger at Microsoft, justified or not. And more than just pointing fingers, the Redmond company finds itself on the receiving end of two class-action lawsuits alleging that it, along with T-Mobile, failed to "adequately ensure the safety, security, and availability of the data belonging" to Sidekick users.

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Posted 10/12/09 at 09:07:27 AM by Paul Lilly

T-Mobile Sidekick owners last week were reminded about the risks of relying too heavily on cloud computing when a massive failure at Microsoft's Danger subsidiary left the handheld owners without access to the Web or their address book for several days.

If that weren't bad enough, after some of the data had been recovered, Microsoft on Saturday told customers that any other missing data may be permanently lost. While it's not uncommon for outages to occur, the potential for permanently lost data casts a dark cloud over, er, cloud computing.

For Microsoft, the timing couldn't be any worse. Next month, the software giant will launch Windows Azure, an operating system in the cloud. Microsoft is quick to point out that the Azure service is built with redundancy in mind and is able to withstand failures in single or multiple nodes, but will that be enough to convince users to put their confidence in the cloud?

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Posted 10/09/09 at 05:43:28 PM by Pulkit Chandna

After Gizmodo crowned constant rumors of a Zune phone by posting the first pictures of two phones it claimed were part of Microsoft’s secret "Pink" phone family, other rumormongers scampered to find (or fabricate) more Pink rumors. Now, rumors of Pink’s prenatal demise are assuming pace.

MobileCrunch was recently approached by an anonymous source “with a seemingly exhaustive knowledge of Microsoft’s Project Pink.” Their source told them that it is highly unlikely that the Pink will ever see the light of day and cited many reasons for its imminent scrapping.

Apple Insider has also found its anonymous knight in stealthy armor. It identified its source as a Microsoft/Danger insider. For those of you who don’t know, Danger is the company that developed the T-Mobile Sidekick before being bought by Microsoft for $500 million in 2008. Danger is rumored to have been converted into “Pink”.

The insider source echoed the claims made by MobileCrunch’s source. But then the anonymous-source ego came into the picture and he made a desperate attempt to prove his superioriy as the more conscientious anonymous source of the two. He believes that the person who originally spilled the beans is clearly a “disgruntled former or current employee.”

“I have my share of disgruntlement about the situation, but it never occurred to me to do something like that. This is actually the worst possible timing for Microsoft for this information to come out (on the heels of the awful reviews of WM 6.5), and I suspect that it has already caused irreparable damage to their relationships with a number of key partners, to which I say, 'Bravo, leaker, well played.' Now allow me to twist the knife...,” he said. He is quite certain that Microsoft had intentionally leaked photos of “Pure” and “Turtle” – the two Pink phones.

But the move seems to have backfired as the tepid response to the leaks seems to have given Microsoft cold feet. I hope you are in the vicinity of a few grains of salt. 

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