MSFT: We've Got Most of the Sidekick Data Back

Earlier this week Microsoft/Danger and T-Mobile announced that all Sidekick data stored on Danger's servers was gone and the likelihood that they'd get any of it back was "extremely low." Up until now, T-Mobile has been the one making statements and offering compensation. Today, Microsoft released a statement detailing what happened that the company lost customer's data in the first place and informing users that most of the data had been retrieved.

"We are pleased to report that we have recovered most customer data for those Sidekick customers whose data was affected by the recent outage," said Roz Ho, Corporate Vice President of Premium Mobile Experiences at Microsoft.  Ho went on to say that Microsoft would begin restoring users' personal data as soon as possible, starting with personal contacts and added that Microsoft now believes the data loss only affected "a minority of Sidekick users."

Now on to the juicier topic of how it all happened in the first place.  Despite reports during the week that say it could only have been an attempt at sabotage from a vexed employee, Microsoft is still pointing the finger of blame at a server failure, claiming it had to rebuild the system piece by piece to retrieve all the data.

"We have determined that the outage was caused by a system failure that created data loss in the core database and the back-up," said Ho. "We rebuilt the system component by component, recovering data along the way. This careful process has taken a significant amount of time, but was necessary to preserve the integrity of the data."

Which do you think is more likely, sabotage or server failure? Let us know in the comments below!

Check out the full letter below (via CNet):

Dear T-Mobile Sidekick customers, On behalf of Microsoft, I want to apologize for the recent problems with the Sidekick service and give you an update on the steps we have taken to resolve these problems. We are pleased to report that we have recovered most customer data for those Sidekick customers whose data was affected by the recent outage. We plan to begin restoring users' personal data as soon as possible, starting with personal contacts, after we have validated the data and our restoration plan. We will then continue to work around the clock to restore data to all affected users, including calendar, notes, tasks, photographs and high scores, as quickly as possible. We now believe that data loss affected a minority of Sidekick users. If your Sidekick account was among those affected, please continue to log into the T-Mobile Sidekick forum at http://www.t-mobile.com/sidekick for the latest updates about when data restoration will begin, and any steps you may need to take. We will work with T-Mobile to post the next update on data restoration timing no later than Saturday. We have determined that the outage was caused by a system failure that created data loss in the core database and the back-up. We rebuilt the system component by component, recovering data along the way. This careful process has taken a significant amount of time, but was necessary to preserve the integrity of the data. We will continue working closely with T-Mobile to restore user data as quickly as possible. We are eager to deliver the level of reliable service that our incredibly loyal customers have become accustomed to, and we are taking immediate steps to help ensure this does not happen again. Specifically, we have made changes to improve the overall stability of the Sidekick Service and initiated a more resilient backup process to ensure that the integrity of our database backups is maintained. Once again, we apologize for this situation and the inconvenience that it has created. Please know that we are working all-out to resolve this situation and restore the reliability of the service. Sincerely, Roz Ho Corporate Vice President Premium Mobile Experiences, Microsoft Corporation