Recently in Cell phones that are not the iPhone Category

Ina Fried of CNet reports that Microsoft has recovered most if not all of the T-Mobile Sidekick data lost by its Danger subsidiary, which should be good news for those customers who haven't abandoned the devices in the past few weeks.

More great reporting from Ina: The Sidekick has many deaf users, and they are far from happy at not being able to use the smartphones to keep in contact with the world. Since the Sidekick is marketed as a messaging device, has a nice keyboard and screen — and is available with a data-only plan, you can see why it is popular among the deaf.

Alas, a lack of development in the Sidekick device itself has sent many deaf users over to the Blackberry camp, and this mishap, which has both put users' data as well as their ability to use the devices at all, in considerable jeopardy. ... There's always another device — and another plan — on the horizon.

Ina's article has audio, video ... it's all there. Very well done.

As for me, I haven't yet opted for even a minimal texting plan, even though I specifically chose a phone that is built just for such activity (the LG Neon), and is as much aimed at kids way younger than my 40-something self as is the Sidekick. My problem: $5 for 200 text messages is too few messages, and $20 for an unlimited amount is too much money. Charge me $10 for either 1,000 or an unlimited amount and you have ... an extra $10 a month from me. I know nobody cares, so I'll crawl back into my Frugal Luddite hole.

Microsoft watcher Mary-Jo Foley of ZDNet says that the T-Mobile Sidekick data-fail at MS' Danger subsidiary isn't connected to Microsoft's Azure cloud platform.

Instead, says Foley, Danger is responsible for Microsoft's Pink (which is supposedly part of an initiative called Premium Mobile Experience or PMX), MS' planned foray into branded (or co-branded) mobile devices for Generation Y (aka everybody under 30; presumably the rest of us will be Logan's Run-ned, but once again, I digress).

More than obviously, Pink already has quite a black eye.

According to sources and reported by Sidekick news site Hiptop3.com, Microsoft and/or its Sidekick-data subsidiary Danger (again, great name) neglected to make a backup of some 800,000 users' T-Mobile Sidekick data before Hitachi began a Microsoft-ordered upgrade to the server farm's storage area network (SAN).

Here is what Hiptop3.com says specifically about what it calls the most credible rumor on what caused the massive fail:

Microsoft was upgrading their SAN (Storage Area Network aka the thing that stores all your data) and had hired Hitachi to come in and do it for them. Typically in an upgrade like this, you are expected to make backups of your SAN before the upgrade happens. Microsoft failed to make these backups for some reason. We're not sure if it was because of the amount of data that would be required, if they didn't have time to do it, or if they simply forgot. Regardless of why, Microsoft should know better. So Hitachi worked on upgrading the SAN and something went wrong, resulting in its destruction. Currently the plan is to try to get the devices that still have personal data on them to sync back to the servers and at least keep the data that users have on their device saved.

We've heard this from what appears to be several sources and it seems to hold weight. Needless to say it all boils down to one thing: Microsoft did not have a working backup.

The site also calls out Microsoft veteran Roz Ho, who's title is "Corporate Vice President, Premium Mobile Experiences," and who is in charge of integrating Danger, which MS acquired in April 2008, into the rest of the Redmond, Wash.-headquartered software giant.

Meanwhile, some T-Mobile Sidekick users have reported that at least some of their lost data has returned to their devices, according to PC World.

PC World suggests that T-Mobile Sidekick users keep an eye on the carrier's forum for up-to-date information on how the data-recovery operation is going.

More inside news from Hiptop3.com:

• T-Mobile to give Sidekick users $100 to compensate for data loss

• Were the Danger servers sabotaged (perhaps by a disgruntled employee) or "dogfooded" (with "dogfooded" meaning a ase of MS "eating its own dog food" and replacing technology with either its own, or with new, untested code)?
  
  In search of a more "legitimate" source? Cnet's Ina Fried is covering the issue at her Microsoft-focused Beyond Binary blog. And for even more Sidekick news, Cnet has gathered it all together in one place.

If you have a T-Mobile Sidekick phone/messaging device, you probably know that you're SOL. Reports over the past few days have said that the service holding all personal data on the devices — Microsoft subsidiary Danger (great name, huh?) has lost that data, with other reports saying there has been no data connectivity at all on the phones in the past two weeks.

What is T-Mobile doing about it? For one thing, they're urging customers to avoid at all costs allowing the battery to die so there's some snowball/hell chance of keeping those contacts and other data.

Oh, and they'll kick you a few sheckels toward a new phone, or give you your freedom:

Today, T-Mobile's trying again to placate its angry Sidekick customers -- whose service has still, as of this writing, not been reinstated -- by offering the option of a $20 discount for a T-Mobile G1 smartphone or a contract release.

Needless to say, the 800,000 or so Sidekick customers aren't thrilled.

In a final move, T-Mobile has halted all sales of the Sidekick on its site and at retail stores, listing all models as "temporarily out of stock."

I guess trusting a company named "Danger" to handle your data probably should've been a sign.

And Sidekick phones are listed as "temporarily out of stock" on the T-Mobile site.

What makes this worse is that a Sidekick users contacts and other information isn't stored in nonvolatile memory on a SIM card, the phone itself or on a removable flash-memory module but instead on the server that is now seemingly dead without a backup.

Question: How close to Microsoft is this so-called "subsidiary" named Danger? And how do you run a major data service without copious backups and hardware fail-over capability?

All I can say is that this makes Google's few-hours-long Gmail outages look like a plateful of sweet, sweet cookies in comparison ...

File this under "holy crap."

Matthew Miller of ZDNet elaborates:

AT&T is subsidizing the iPhone this time, much like the other mobile phone purchases made in the United States and may be paying Apple as much as US$325 for each iPhone 3G that is purchased.

...

Don't worry about AT&T though, since they will make up this $325 and a bit more with the increased data and text message rates. Plus, with the new lower initial out-of-the pocket price for new subscribers we may see a lot more iPhones flying off the shelves next month than when the first generation iPhone started off at $599 last year.

For the record, I wasn't worried.

In other iPhone news: AT&T wants 3G users to pay more for data and text messages.

An observation from one poor SOB: That's me, in case you hadn't figured it out. I've found a lot more people out there with cell-phone data plans than I expected. Many people are happy to pay $70 a month to talk/text/browse/e-mail from their mobile handset, be it a Blackberry, iPhone or other such keyboard-equipped device.

Not being a user of either the iPhone, Blackberry or ... anything beyond my now-ancient Motorola phone, if e-mail is really important, a Blackberry or Palm Treo with a full QWERTY button keyboard seems to be a better choice than the iPhone's touchscreen. I say seems because I really don't know, but I'd like for anybody out there who has experience with such devices to tell me.

Send me an e-mail at steven.rosenberg@dailynews.com.