T-Mobile resumes Sidekick sales after data loss

T-Mobile USA said that it has resumed selling Sidekick devices, a little more than a month after a Microsoft server glitch caused some Sidekick users to lose their personal data. The carrier announced new, lower prices for the devices: the Sidekick LX 2009 will be $149.99 with a two-year contract and the Sidekick 2008 will be $49.99 with a two-year contract.

Microsoft has been able to restore many users' data, but the entire event was a black eye for Microsoft and T-Mobile. In the wake of the debacle, T-Mobile said that in addition to crediting customers who had Sidekick data plans with a free month of data services, it would give a $100 credit to customers who experienced a "significant and permanent" loss of data.

Microsoft said the outage was caused by "a system failure that created data loss in the core database and the back-up." The company  said it has now taken steps to improve the stability of the Sidekick service and has a more "resilient" back-up service.

For more:
- see this CNET article

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