Occasionally Blackberries go down. Not one or two, but all of them. Sometimes (albeit rarely), Google Apps are unavailable. The Mac community got so frustrated with MobileMe during the .Mac transition that Apple released an official apology of sorts. But nothing that is as dangerous as the recent SideKick data loss. In a move that is characteristic of the battle that has been brewing between the makers of mobile devices and the carriers that provide access to those devices, T-Mobile released the following statement:
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.
Many are quick to point this colossal fail at something being wrong with the cloud computing model. Microsoft might be apt to say, but our cloud is a private cloud, likely a popular response from vendors that sell private clouds (or in Microsoft’s case Software + Services). I’m still on the fence about that one myself…