Ballmer Says Obvious: SideKick Outage Not Good

By Jane McEntegart
published

Here's a little update for all you Sidekickers who lost data over the last couple of weeks. In a statement released yesterday, Microsoft assured users it is working "around the clock" to restore everything.

In a statement released yesterday, Microsoft assured users it is working "around the clock" to restore everything. With any luck, affected users should have their contacts back by the end of this week.

"We continue to make steady progress, and we hope to be able to begin restoring personal contacts for affected users this week, with the remainder of the content (photographs, notes, to-do-lists, marketplace data, and high scores) shortly thereafter."

Nice to see everyone is going to get his or her important data back, even if it is going to take a while. That said, what would this cloud computing catastrophe be without a word or two from Steve Ballmer?

When asked about the incident, he described the situation as, "not good" and went on to say that it looks like all the data will be recovered. The CEO of Microsoft went on to tell Network World that the Redmond-based company would have to make extra effort to assure to enterprise customers the same mistake would not be made again.

"It is something we are going to have to address and explain to customers our method and process and quality approach and what went wrong in that case and how we are making sure that it does not happen again."

Would you ever trust cloud computing? Why or why not?

Jane McEntegart
33 Comments Comment from the forums
  • ssalim
    Everybody makes a mistake. Give them one more chance.
    Reply
  • agentjon
    I wonder how many microsoft employees are now receving unemployement checks because of this.
    Reply
  • XBOX RRoD and DVD drive problem,s sidekick data loss, Vista, Win ME, ... just to name the ones on the top of my head. Microsoft has had a million and two chances, and blows about every other one. Good job, M$.
    Reply
  • gaevs
    Actually, every company has it's own problems, not just Microsoft.. Apple, IBM and others... exploding phones anyone??
    Reply
  • AndrewMD
    Just to highlight the main issue. The data was housed with a platform that was running Linux and a database using Oracle. A Lot of people just assume that this is a Microsoft problem when Microsoft only purchase this company a year or two ago and left it intact since it was working fine and turning profits.

    Everyone here would be crying if Microsoft did the opposite and changed all the servers and services to run only Microsoft based solutions..

    I actually commend Microsoft for making the effort to get most of the data back. Now some people will never be happy about what happened, but then it is thinking like this that got our country into the trouble it is in today..
    Reply
  • Manos
    microsoftblowsssssXBOX RRoD and DVD drive problem,s sidekick data loss, Vista, Win ME, ... just to name the ones on the top of my head. Microsoft has had a million and two chances, and blows about every other one. Good job, M$.
    Well Win XP has been great . If it was up to you there would be no actions of change, upgrade etc and things would evolve just as evolved as is your slow brain.
    A ) If it wasnt for Vista to use a bit extra x64 CPUs, win 7 would be nothing but.. a barely about to released Vista. Moves have to be made to see some progress.
    B ) 360's RRoD has a 3 year waranty. So i take it if you are a Sony fanboy for being so eager to talk shit about a company like MS I hope you enjoy as much as the rest that haver to pay 200$ to repair their PS3 bricked from the firmwares etc without warranty cover just as much as they suck in general in hardware/warranty. If not a fanboy but just a retard the 3years of warranty along with free shipping would be something for you to have in mind since you havent experienced a RRoD to be aware of how things work.
    C ) Sidekick data loss was a mistake from another group of working on the servers of MS.
    D ) Since there is nothing insider your head and its all those millions form the top of it just to make things more intence next time add both 86x and 64x versions of windows. Will enrich your list.
    E ) For starters you should consider changing your nickname cause you are screaming out that you are nothing more than some kiddo/tard that needs to get laid with his PS3 of Macbook. cant be 100% sure what kind of a fanboy you are but you are eitherway as messed up as you shouldnt.
    Reply
  • samely
    "Would you ever trust cloud computing? Why or why not?"
    Call me paranoid, but no, probably not ever. Having personal information on the internet in any way shape or form is not a good idea in my mind, outside of maybe my first name. Too many situations like breach of data, data loss, the google voice thing, etc. I set up a Twitter account a while back with my first and last name. 5 minutes later, I took my last name off. But sites have already cached my Twitter with my full name, so now people can find my Twitter by searching my full name, which wasn't my intention. Technology at it's finest.
    Reply
  • geoffs
    If this disaster is "not good", what does mean about Vista when he said it was "less than stellar"? Nothing Ballmer says is useful. Can we get a new front man for MS? Ballmer is terrible for their image.
    Reply
  • geoffs
    ssalimEverybody makes a mistake. Give them one more chance.Not with my data.
    Reply
  • geoffs
    AndrewMDJust to highlight the main issue. The data was housed with a platform that was running Linux and a database using Oracle. A Lot of people just assume that this is a Microsoft problem when Microsoft only purchase this company a year or two ago and left it intact since it was working fine and turning profits.The issue isn't what platform it was running, or how long they've owned Danger. The issue is that they didn't have a reasonable backup. That's stupid when it's your own data. That's inexcusable when you're hosting someone else's data and promising 99.5%+ availability.

    Systems fail and people make mistakes, backups are for those situations. In fact, about 90% of the time, a backup will be used to recover from a user or adminstrator mistake, and only about 10% from a system failure.

    Yes, several people should be fired over this. I'm not on the inside, so I can't say who for certain, but I can identify a few likely candidates. Of course, I'm not giving that info away for free, so if MS wants to consult with me....
    Reply