When providing cloud services to customers, it might seem as a good idea to have all information securely tucked away somewhere within the providers servers and storage devices. If, for instance, your phone is lost and all data is stored on a server somewhere its quite easy to just disable the phones access to the data and get a new one – up to speed with everything in minutes, nothing lost.

However, when its the other way around, you still have your phone but someone misplaced the cloud – then its another story altogether.

Like this little story here:

“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.”

(http://forums.t-mobile.com/tmbl/?category.id=Sidekick)

This is the current information (10-10-2009) for T-Mobiles’ Sidekick users in the US. Their phones store everything on Microsoft’s (Danger is a Microsoft subsidiary) servers somewhere in “the cloud”. When they manage to misplace their entire data store it seems that the whole idea that big, safe, knowledgeable corporations like Microsoft and  T-Mobile are somehow better suited to provide a safe haven for your data is a little off.

Note to self: When providing cloud services to store clients data, make a backup copy and store it in a safe place.

(screenshot of the message to the end users)

UPDATE – After several weeks it seems as if everything actually managed to be found and almost restored… You still have to have your photos emailed to you but I guess that is ok since the Sidekick phone is probably not around anymore anyhow…