From the “what took them so long” department comes the first lawsuits over the Sidekick outage being filed. One of them highlights the fact that there was apparently no backup of users data. Something that I’ve touched on before:
T-Mobile and its service providers ought to have been more careful the use of backup technology and policies to prevent such data loss” said Ira P. Rothken, an attorney working on that case. “We are hopeful that T-Mobile and the rest of the defendants will do the right thing, use this as an opportunity to redesign the system as a new standard for cloud computing storage, and provide full compensation for the data loss.”
Another highlights the fact that the data that was lost has a high value, which is something else that I’ve touched on in the past:
Another suit, filed on behalf of Maureen Thompson “and all others similarly situated” seeks unspecified damages for Thompson and others who have lost data as a result of the recent Sidekick problems.
According to her lawyer, Thompson owns a Sidekick used primarily by her daughter, an aspiring model, singer, and songwriter who used her Sidekick to store personal and business contacts, appointments, and even irreplaceable song lyrics not stored anywhere else. The lawyer said that Thompson bought the device “primarily because T-Mobile promised that any data would be protected and available no matter what happened to the phone.”
“T-Mobile’s initial efforts to reimburse Sidekick users are a step in the right direction, but fail to sufficiently compensate Sidekick users for this disastrous loss of data,” Thompson attorney Jay Edelson said in a statement. “T-Mobile and Microsoft promised to safeguard the most important data their customers possess and then apparently failed to follow even the most basic data protection principles. What they did is unthinkable in this day and age.”
Wait. Didn’t Perez Hilton point out on his Twitter feed that T-Mobile told him that he didn’t had to worry about backing up his data because they did it for him? I bet T-Mobile is wishing they never made that claim. Speaking of T-Mobile, I wonder how they and Danger/Microsoft are responding to this? Oh wait. They’re quoted in this article too:
Microsoft declined to comment on the lawsuit, but, a representative said on Wednesday that the company is “obviously very sorry for the inconvenience that this situation has caused Sidekick users, and we are working around the clock in an effort to recover and restore the data for any affected users. While it is still too early to say for sure, we announced on Monday that our engineering teams were increasingly optimistic.”
For its part, T-Mobile said in a statement that it “does not comment on pending litigation.”
Seeing as some users were getting their data back, I guess there’s reason for Microsoft to hope. But I suspect it won’t be enough for them to avoid this lawsuit I suspect.
Meanwhile, the mass defections to other carriers that have Blackberries and iPhones continues while this plays out in court. You can also expect that more lawsuits will be filed shortly as well.
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This entry was posted on October 14, 2009 at 8:27 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Microsoft, Sidekick, T-Mobile. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Sidekick Outage Results In Lawsuits Being Filed
From the “what took them so long” department comes the first lawsuits over the Sidekick outage being filed. One of them highlights the fact that there was apparently no backup of users data. Something that I’ve touched on before:
T-Mobile and its service providers ought to have been more careful the use of backup technology and policies to prevent such data loss” said Ira P. Rothken, an attorney working on that case. “We are hopeful that T-Mobile and the rest of the defendants will do the right thing, use this as an opportunity to redesign the system as a new standard for cloud computing storage, and provide full compensation for the data loss.”
Another highlights the fact that the data that was lost has a high value, which is something else that I’ve touched on in the past:
Another suit, filed on behalf of Maureen Thompson “and all others similarly situated” seeks unspecified damages for Thompson and others who have lost data as a result of the recent Sidekick problems.
According to her lawyer, Thompson owns a Sidekick used primarily by her daughter, an aspiring model, singer, and songwriter who used her Sidekick to store personal and business contacts, appointments, and even irreplaceable song lyrics not stored anywhere else. The lawyer said that Thompson bought the device “primarily because T-Mobile promised that any data would be protected and available no matter what happened to the phone.”
“T-Mobile’s initial efforts to reimburse Sidekick users are a step in the right direction, but fail to sufficiently compensate Sidekick users for this disastrous loss of data,” Thompson attorney Jay Edelson said in a statement. “T-Mobile and Microsoft promised to safeguard the most important data their customers possess and then apparently failed to follow even the most basic data protection principles. What they did is unthinkable in this day and age.”
Wait. Didn’t Perez Hilton point out on his Twitter feed that T-Mobile told him that he didn’t had to worry about backing up his data because they did it for him? I bet T-Mobile is wishing they never made that claim. Speaking of T-Mobile, I wonder how they and Danger/Microsoft are responding to this? Oh wait. They’re quoted in this article too:
Microsoft declined to comment on the lawsuit, but, a representative said on Wednesday that the company is “obviously very sorry for the inconvenience that this situation has caused Sidekick users, and we are working around the clock in an effort to recover and restore the data for any affected users. While it is still too early to say for sure, we announced on Monday that our engineering teams were increasingly optimistic.”
For its part, T-Mobile said in a statement that it “does not comment on pending litigation.”
Seeing as some users were getting their data back, I guess there’s reason for Microsoft to hope. But I suspect it won’t be enough for them to avoid this lawsuit I suspect.
Meanwhile, the mass defections to other carriers that have Blackberries and iPhones continues while this plays out in court. You can also expect that more lawsuits will be filed shortly as well.
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This entry was posted on October 14, 2009 at 8:27 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Microsoft, Sidekick, T-Mobile. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.