RSSThe Sidekick catastrophe: A curse for Microsoft, but a blessing for Motorola?
By Tim Conneally | Published October 12, 2009, 11:35 AM
What began last week as a service disruption for T-Mobile Sidekick users devolved into one of the worst calamities in mobile/cloud synchronization thus far. One week after announcing the prolonged disruption, T-Mobile, its Sidekick service provider Danger, and Danger parent company Microsoft alerted users that the disruption had become a complete failure, resulting in the loss of contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists, and photos which users had synced to the network.
The companies only said that the data loss was attributed to "a server failure at Microsoft/Danger," but there have been rumors that it was actually a joint failure of Microsoft and Hitachi when attempting to update the Danger Storage Area Network (SAN), which failed, and no backup had been performed.
T-Mobile and Microsoft are expected to provide further details of the recovery efforts and remaining issues this afternoon.
In the meantime, T-Mobile's support forums have been jammed with thousands of comments from shocked and appalled customers, wondering what to do and where to turn.
Many are taking this outage as a sign to cease their support for the Sidekick and pick up something new. Because the Android-powered Motorola Cliq goes up for pre-order on T-Mobile this Sunday, and since the device has been marketed to largely the same audience that would use a Sidekick, a significant number of users are considering switching.
"I'm definitely interested in the Cliq," one user wrote in T-Mobile's support forum. "I've been loyal to Sidekicks in the past because of the solid OS & everything (in the past) has worked great. With the LX 09, however, there are more problems than perks. I blame that on the acquisition of Danger by MS."
Indeed, most of the Danger team is now gone, including CEO Andy Rubin who has gone on to become Google's head Android developer.
So with the sentiment that Microsoft has killed the Sidekick at an all-time high and user frustration at a similar zenith, Motorola's launch of the Cliq could scarcely come at a better time.
this just happend to my mac mini!!!! ggggrrrr
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|"attempting to update the Danger Storage Area Network (SAN), which failed, and no backup had been performed"
Jebus, even Windows backs up itself before updating.
This should be a reminder to people to not rely on a storage provider to keep all of their data and contacts. Not only can screwups like this happen, you never know what will happen to the companies in 5 years. Keep local backups.
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|Were these servers running on Snow Leopard, by any chance?
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|What a perfect name - "Microsoft/Danger'"!
And I do wonder where is the backup? No backup at all? Bad idea.
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|Kind of ironic for customers to lose their Sidekick data from the cloud and then pick up Android....
I'm not saying that I think Google will lose peoples data BUT "once bitten, twice shy", no? I have a G1 and I have my stuff backed up to Outlook, jic. I don't expect this from Sidekick people, but I would have expected that Tmo would promote or suggest some kind of backup knowing the kind of system the phone uses.
Hopefully they'll do this now.
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|Assumptions are always a bad idea, but I would think when you haev a service that syncs to the cloud (and presumably only to the cloud), you would have some assurance that your information is being backed up as well.
I wonder if there isn't something somewhere that says anything about how the data is protected.
I also don't think this is an MS issue - this could happen to any company if the tech doesn't ensure things are done properly and backed up before performing updates that could damage data. The lack of backups probably existed before the MS purchase.
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|"Kind of ironic for customers to lose their Sidekick data from the cloud and then pick up Android...."
Very true... first thing I did when I got my MT3G was to root it and backup everything... I have also backed up my Google data to my Exchange account and vice-versa...
It will be interesting to see if Tmo, besides offering Android as an alternative to the sidekick, also throws in a backup plan for the device.
What is also interesting is how people with feature phones (I think of the sidekick as a feature phone rather than a true smartphone) don't think about backups at all. That just boggles my mind. We are finally, finally, getting to a point where people are learning to backup their pc's (after how many years of telling them?!). Now, we have to go through the same exercise all over again with their smartphones... oh joy.
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|The problem with the Sidekick is that there's no permanent local storage, when you power if off, everything is wiped. When the phone powers on, it gets all it's data from the cloud. Android (and most other) phones store your data permanently on the phone along with having cloud syncing, the cloud isn't the *only* permanent data source.
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|Yeah, and that is what classifies it as a feature phone in my mind. If it doesn't have an SD card slot and a kernel, I want nothing to do with it! ;-)
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|T-Mobile should offer Sidekick users an attractive discount on the Motorola Cliq, not only as a form of compensation, but also as an incentive to migrate Sidekick users to the Android platform.
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|Ask for an attractive offer and ye shall receive: T-Mobile is offering up some free CLIQs every day right now - enter at http://t-mobile.com/cliq and you'll also be eligible to win a VIP vacation. Not bad just for registering, eh? I'm working with T-Mobile so let me know if you have any comments or questions about the sweepstakes.
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|I see no way to "enter" anything on that site. Not to mention that the website itself seems to be hosed.
(I am assuming the "white phone" is not supposed to appear under the "black phone" on top of the site-links, but rather be an option for viewing either or...FF 3.5.3)
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|The entry form is here: https://cliq.t-mobile.com/register.aspx
By registering for more information, you're entered to win the grand prize (vacation) or a CLIQ instantly.
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