October 13th, 2009
T-Mobile turns Sidekick data disaster into a PR mess
Over the weekend it emerged that a server crash at Microsoft/Danger had caused significant data loss for Sidekick users on the T-Mobile network. Yesterday T-Mobile released a statement which caused further anger and confusion amongst Sidekick users.
Here’s the statement:
Dear valued T-Mobile Sidekick customers:
We are thankful for your continued patience as Microsoft/Danger continues to work on preserving platform stability and restoring all services for our Sidekick customers. We have made significant progress this past weekend, restoring services to virtually every customer. Microsoft/Danger has teams of experts in place who are working around-the-clock to ensure this stability is maintained.
Regarding those of you who have lost personal content, T-Mobile and Microsoft/Danger continue to do all we can to recover and return any lost information. Recent efforts indicate the prospects of recovering some lost content may now be possible. We will continue to keep you updated on this front; we know how important this is to you.
In the event certain customers have experienced a significant and permanent loss of personal content, T-Mobile will be sending these customers a $100 customer appreciation card. This will be in addition to the free month of data service that already went to Sidekick data customers. This card can be used towards T-Mobile products and services, or a customer’s T-Mobile bill. For those who fall into this category, details will be sent out in the next 14 days – there is no action needed on the part of these customers. We however remain hopeful that for the majority of our customers, personal content can be recovered.
Wow! A $100 gift card that you spend with T-Mobile … Woohoo. Also, what is it with the “experienced a significant and permanent loss of personal content” nonsense? Who decides what’s significant? Way to make a tech disaster into a PR disaster too T-Mobile!
Along with clarity over compensation, I think that Sidekick customers are entitled to answers to a few questions, such as:
- What caused the outage?
- Why no data backup?
- Why is a fix taking so long?
- What precautions have been put in place to prevent a repeat of this mess?
Personally, I’m wary of cloud computing. If I lose data because I’ve not backed it up, that’s my look out, but it seems that you can’t even trust big companies to have bancups either.
Adrian is a technology journalist and author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology. He also runs a popular blog called The PC Doctor. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations
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