Sidekick Data Loss Shows the Danger of Relying Solely on the Cloud

• Author: admin
• Filed under: Tech News
• Date: Oct 12,2009

It’s hard to believe a company as large as Microsoft, or at least one of its subsidiaries (Danger) could lose data for untold numbers of end users. Unfortunately, as T-Mobile relates, that’s what happened, because of a server failure.

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.

Now, it’s recommended that end users back up data on their PCs and other devices. So the question becomes: are you telling me Microsoft / Danger had no backup for this server?

That’s apparently the case. Thus, despite what you might think, and despite what they tell you: that your data is safe in the cloud, because a big company like Microsoft / Yahoo! / Google / HP / whoever is not going to lose your data, it’s not necessarily the case.

Sure, I store lots of stuff in the cloud, but as a backup. Even for my iPhone, I have it synced to my PC, not just MobileMe. That’s the key: redundancy. Don’t trust any one method of storage.

One thing is for sure: with Microsoft’s Danger division having this huge SNAFU, do you think anyone is going to trust Microsoft’s MyPhone data storage, without thinking twice about it?