Sidekick Data Disaster: Microsoft Full Of "Clueless Idiots," Says Danger Inc. Source

Apple Insider:

Additional insiders have stepped forward to shed more light into Microsoft's troubled acquisition of Danger, its beleaguered Pink Project, and what has become one of the most high profile Information Technology disasters in recent memory.

The sources point to longstanding management issues, a culture of "dogfooding" (to eradicate any vestiges of competitor's technologies after an acquisition), and evidence that could suggest the failure was the result of a deliberate act of sabotage.

Read the whole story: Apple Insider

Comments

[Faxus]

Short of a major fire in the server farm, I do not see how this could have happened. If the servers and hard drives are intact the data should be recoverable. If it's not sabotage then it must be complete stupidity on the part of Microsoft. How can anyone in business trust Microsoft with anything? Look at their stock price as compared to Google. The future looks very bleak for Microsoft and I for one will be happy to see their stock plow right into the ground.

[ramblingjohnny]

This is what you get for outsourcing a key part of your service to a fly by night small corporation that can get bought by a any major competitor. T-Mobile mistake was in not forcing Danger to either stay independent or let them match any offer they get!

[hopefull2008]

Well if Appleinsider says this about Microsoft, it must be true. We get it Hpo .. Apple good, Microsoft bad. Way to go with journalistic integrity.

[SwingingFromCenter]

The bottom line here is that T-Mobile is just as culpable for this as MIcrosoft. HOW was there no redundancy in this setup? Why were there not complete backups stored on a SAN somewhere? Something like this is completely unheard of in an enterprise level environment.

I've done contracts for both of these companies in the past, and how this happened defies all logic to me. It just doesn't reconcile. Both of these companies typically have ridiculously stringent standards - how this fell through the cracks, I'll never know. Especially since Microsoft uses SCOM, which would have alerted them to this problem ages ago.

[Principaldad]

The article on appleinsider talks about how it could have happened. To me the most likely explanation is sabotage. It would explain why the data service was down for so long and why the backups did not work.

The other possibility from the story is failure to backup correctly. I work for a high tech company with stringent standards, and I have actually experienced that kind of backup failure two different times. In both cases it was discovered after a failure that the backup was set up incorrectly. The problem with this theory is that it does not explain the loss of the entire data center in the first place or the extremely long recovery time.

Blame for the failure almost certainly does NOT rest with T-Mobile. The data center was extremely redundant. T-Mobile's problem has been with some of their handling of the issue. They have gotten better in the last couple of days, but they have had some serious customer service failures.

[SwingingFromCenter]

Even with sabotage, you treat your backups like you treat your accountants: 1 person can write the check, the other can sign it. There always needs to be an off-site backup stored with someone who does not perform the backups.

[kjpweb]

Oh - now an Apple "Insider" is reporting on Microsoft Insider info? Interesting.
I'm taking that with a whole boatload of salt, since the Apple insider for the most part
is effectively the more adult version of an Apple fanboys vision.
I can't speak for the validity of the claim or facts - it just makes me cringe as much as it would
- if a Ford fan rips Toyota.

[Christina Lane]

Why is he showing us his wedding ring like that's an issue? Did his wife do it?