Sidekick failure highlights cloud danger

 

Gallery

By Stuart Turton

Posted on 12 Oct 2009 at 10:23

Microsoft has admitted that a huge outage that left many T-Mobile Sidekick users without access to their personal data is "almost certainly" permanent, casting a shadow over the company's cloud promises.

The Sidekick smartphone stores much of the user's personal information online, rather than on the device itself. This cloud is maintained by Microsoft's Danger subsidiary, which suffered a massive outage last week, leaving thousands of Sidekick owners without access to contacts, calenders and photos.

"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," a statement on the website reads.

"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," it concludes.

The embarrassing failure comes as Microsoft launches a raft of new online products including Azure and Office Web Apps.

However, Microsoft has pointed out that its Azure architecture has been built from the ground up with redundancy in mind, which should prevent the sorts of data disaster experienced by Danger.