Lost in the cloud: Microsoft, T-Mobile embarrassed in service outage

Users of the Sidekick mobile device are closing out a couple weeks of anxiety, conflicting information, and possibly reassurance. It’s an episode in the Information Age that proves something, or proves nothing; it matters a great deal, or it matters little.

On the face of it, the service outage that T-Mobile USA reported last weekend for its Sidekick subscribers may give the concept of cloud computing a bad name. Then again, it may not.

The Sidekick was originally created by a small company called Danger, Inc., which was acquired last year by Microsoft. Danger called the mobile communication device the Hiptop, and the product was rebranded as the Sidekick by T-Mobile. Celebrity Paris Hilton was famous for using the product, especially after her Sidekick was hacked in 2005 and her device’s address book and photos she took were posted to the Internet. More importantly, the Sidekick enjoys widespread usage among deaf people and the hard-of-hearing, since they can make TTY phone calls on the device.

While data services outages are common in our modern world, what set the Sidekick outage apart was the initial news that contact info and other data Sidekick subscribers entrusted to the Danger/Microsoft computing cloud might be irretrievably lost. Now, Microsoft is reporting that it may be able to retrieve the lost info for most, if not all, affected users.

T-Mobile earned some kudos by keeping people apprised of the outage and promising refunds to subscribers for the days when they were unable to use their Sidekicks. They also suspended sales of the Sidekick in their retail outlets until the outage is fully resolved. Microsoft and T-Mobile apologized for the outage and the inconveniences it caused.

It’s yet another black eye for Microsoft, as it is about to launch Windows 7 and to formally introduce Windows Azure, its operating system for cloud computing. I’m sure they’ll get through the embarrassment, of course, but it doesn’t help inspire public confidence in Microsoft products and services.

Does this episode mean cloud computing is a service concept doomed to failure, and we should all stop using smartphones? Of course not. Technology is always going to be subject to failures and disappointments. You take risks walking out of your home every day, yet the answer isn’t to stay home and avoid those risks. We just have to learn to live without impossible expectations of infallibility and perfection.

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Photo by Nick Starr, used under a CC-Share Alike license.