a summary of the current cranky. [pb]

[cmat]

So yes, I (past tense) kept data on my phone, which is a T-Mobile Sidekick. As most people who aren't on Jupiter have heard, they've been having some big, bad problems, which include my data.* Here is a good article. Excellent summary originally courtesy ishaa:

1. Microsoft started a secret smartphone project called Pink
   
2. Microsoft bought Danger, said it was to acquire Sidekick goodness
   
   • But either Microsoft never intended to really assimilate Sidekick, just to smother a competitor and to give the Pink team something to worry about
     
   • Or Microsoft meant to assimilate Sidekick into Pink, but then learned that they couldn't quietly let the Sidekick die because of unbreakable support contracts with T-Mobile
3. At this point, everyone smart had already quit Danger
   
4. The Pink project failed on merit
   
5. the Sidekick servers failed, unclear why (see an argument for sabotage), but:
   
6. It is very clear that Microsoft didn't give a damn about maintaining Sidekick beyond their contractual obligations to T-Mobile... and they didn't even manage that.

Many, many props to Daniel Eran Dilger, who is doing actual reporting and journalism.

* (If you want to point out that anyone stupid enough to rely on the cloud should expect data loss: save it. I disagree and I don't want to hear it.)