ComputerWorld is reporting that T-Mobile has suspended sales of its Sidekick telephone in wake of the problems it has been having the past week plus. At T-Mobile's web site, every Sidekick model is now listed as "temporarily out of stock."
In a related New York Times article today, T-Mobile announced that some of Sidekick customers' phone numbers, photographs and other data may be recoverable after all.
"There are about one million Sidekick users, but not all of them have lost data. Initially, Microsoft cautioned that the data might be gone forever, but now Microsoft engineers are optimistic that much of it can be recovered, said David Beigie, vice president for communications at T-Mobile."
How much pressure do you think T-Mobile exerted on Microsoft to find a way to recover that data?
And how long will it be before T-Mobile dumps Microsoft; before T-Mobile customers dump T-Mobile?
Robert N. Charette is a Contributing Editor to IEEE Spectrum and an acknowledged international authority on information technology and systems risk management. A self-described “risk ecologist,” he is interested in the intersections of business, political, technological, and societal risks. Charette is an award-winning author of multiple books and numerous articles on the subjects of risk management, project and program management, innovation, and entrepreneurship. A Life Senior Member of the IEEE, Charette was a recipient of the IEEE Computer Society’s Golden Core Award in 2008.
