VoIP Tech Chat

T-Mobile, providers of the T-Mobile Sidekick smartphone, recently announced an outage blocking user access to address books, calendars, photos, etc. After more than a week of “working around-the-clock,” T-Mobile announced today that the user data will most likely never return.

In an announement released on October 10th, T-Mobile advised users:

Sidekick customers, during this service disruption, please DO NOT remove your battery, reset your Sidekick, or allow it to lose power.

Updated: 10/10/2009 12:35 PM PDT

T-MOBILE AND MICROSOFT/DANGER STATUS UPDATE ON SIDEKICK DATA DISRUPTION

Dear valued T-Mobile Sidekick customers:

T-Mobile and the Sidekick data services provider, Danger, a subsidiary of Microsoft, are reaching out to express our apologies regarding the recent Sidekick data service disruption.

We appreciate your patience as Microsoft/Danger continues to work on maintaining platform stability, and restoring all services for our Sidekick customers.

Regrettably, based on Microsoft/Danger’s latest recovery assessment of their systems, we must now inform you that personal information stored on your device – such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos – that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger. That said, our teams continue to work around-the-clock in hopes of discovering some way to recover this information. However, the likelihood of a successful outcome is extremely low. As such, we wanted to share this news with you and offer some tips and suggestions to help you rebuild your personal content. You can find these tips in our Sidekick Contacts FAQ. We encourage you to visit the Forums on a regular basis to access the latest updates as well as FAQs regarding this service disruption.

In addition, we plan to communicate with you on Monday (Oct. 12) the status of the remaining issues caused by the service disruption, including the data recovery efforts and the Download Catalog restoration which we are continuing to resolve. We also will communicate any additional tips or suggestions that may help in restoring your content.

We recognize the magnitude of this inconvenience. Our primary efforts have been focused on restoring our customers’ personal content. We also are considering additional measures for those of you who have lost your content to help reinforce how valuable you are as a T-Mobile customer.

We continue to advise customers to NOT reset their device by removing the battery or letting their battery drain completely, as any personal content that currently resides on your device will be lost.

Once again, T-Mobile and Microsoft/Danger regret any and all inconvenience this matter has caused.

Cloud computing remains “the buzz phrase that won’t go away” and still captures the hearts of IT professionals everywhere. With that in mind, many (including yours truly) still remain unconvinced that that cloud provides a better alternative to effectively managing your own assets.

For T-Mobile Sidekick users who only kept their information in the cloud, it looks like their balloon of personal information won’t be returning home.

Suggested readings and related articles:

• Dave Michels / Pin Drop Soup: Cloud Series 5: Hosted Voice – Just say no
  (for that matter, read his whole cloud series. Scratch that, just read what Dave Michels writes. )
• VoIP Tech Chat: Cloud Security Not Air Tight
• CNET: Major outage hits T-Mobile Sidekick users
• CNET: Missing Sidekick data may be gone for good