Microsoft issues Sidekick data recovery tool

T-Mobile Sidekick smartphone customers gain tool to recover contacts; photos, notes and other data up next

Microsoft Tuesday posted a link to a data recovery tool for T-Mobile Sidekick smartphone users, the latest step in the company’s effort to clean up the mobile device service outage mess.

The tool’s availability comes a day after Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer weighed in on the Sidekick episode, which he described as "not good" in an exclusive interview with Network World at the SharePoint Conference this week. 

Some T-Mobile Sidekick owners lost contacts, calendar and other data a couple of weeks back after Microsoft subsidiary Danger, which provides service to Sidekick mobile device users on behalf of T-Mobile, suffered an outage. As usual, the Sidekick service outage had pundits weighing in on the pros and cons of cloud computing.

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Microsoft Tuesday posted a link to a data recovery tool for T-Mobile Sidekick smartphone users, the latest step in the company’s effort to clean up the mobile device service outage mess.

The tool’s availability comes a day after Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer weighed in on the Sidekick episode, which he described as "not good" in an exclusive interview with Network World at the SharePoint Conference this week. 

Some T-Mobile Sidekick owners lost contacts, calendar and other data a couple of weeks back after Microsoft subsidiary Danger, which provides service to Sidekick mobile device users on behalf of T-Mobile, suffered an outage. As usual, the Sidekick service outage had pundits weighing in on the pros and cons of cloud computing.

Beginning Tuesday, Sidekick customers can log into the My.T-Mobile website to grab the recovery tool to restore contacts.

From Sidekick to Gmail: A short history of cloud computing outages

A memo to customers from Microsoft/Danger on the T-Mobile Sidekick website reads in part: "This tool will enable you to view the contacts you had on your device as of October 1. With a few clicks and a confirmation, you will be able to restore these contacts to your Sidekick. If you have recreated some of the same contacts on your Sidekick since October 1, you can choose to keep both sets of contacts, merge them, or just keep the set of contacts now on your device. You may also edit any partial or complete duplicates on your Sidekick after restoration."

Microsoft says its Danger group is working around the clock to help customers restore the rest of their data, including photos, notes and to-do lists.

Last week, Microsoft issued an apology and notified Sidekick users that most of them would be able to recover most of their data. Up until then, it had been feared most data would be gone for good.

Read more about wireless & mobile in Network World's Wireless & Mobile section.