Microsoft claims to have recovered the personal data lost when
its
Sidekick smartphone servers failed.
The company said the data loss was a result of a server failure
in a datacentre it acquired when it bought smartphone business
Danger.
The servers were used to store contacts, photos, calendar
appointments and other personal data stored on the Sidekick phones
operating on the US T-Mobile network.
Microsoft corporate vice president Roz Ho said all data will be
restored and only a minority of Sidekick users are still affected,
according to the
BBC.
Microsoft has still not disclosed how many people were affected
by the data loss, but Sidekick is believed to have around a million
subscribers.
Microsoft said it has improved the overall stability of the
service and installed "a more resilient back-up process" to prevent
similar data losses in future.
Industry commentators said the data loss is one of the largest
failings in cloud computing, but Microsoft has tried to distance
its cloud services from its newly acquired Danger division.
Announcing the data loss earlier in the week, Microsoft said the
Danger servers had not been updated to run on Microsoft
technology.
Danger was acquired by Microsoft 18 months ago as part of plans
to bolster the company's position in the smartphone market.