| Type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2000 |
| Headquarters | Palo Alto, California |
| Industry | Software and services |
| Products | Client/Server software |
| Revenue | undisclosed |
| Employees | undisclosed |
| Parent | Microsoft |
| Website | www.danger.com |
Danger, Inc. was a company specializing in platforms, software, design, and services for mobile computing devices. Its most notable product was the T-Mobile Sidekick (aka Danger Hiptop).
The company was originally started by former Apple Inc., WebTV and Philips employees Andy Rubin, Joe Britt, and Matt Hershenson. Danger was acquired by Microsoft on 11 February, 2008.
The former Danger staff were absorbed into the Mobile Communications Business (MCB) of the Entertainment and Devices Division at Microsoft, where they worked on a future Microsoft mobile phone platform known as Project Pink.[1] However, by October 2009, most of the ex Danger employees had left Microsoft to pursue other things.[2]
Cofounder Andy Rubin joined Google to become Director of Mobile Platforms, overseeing the development of Google's Android phone platform.[2]
October 2009 Data Loss Episode
In early October 2009, a server malfunction or technician error at Danger's datacenters resulted in the loss of all Sidekick-user data. As Sidekicks store users' data on Danger's servers—as opposed to using local storage—users lost contact directories, calendars, photos, and all other media not locally backed up. In an October 10 letter to subscribers, Microsoft expressed its doubt that any data would be recovered.[3]
The customer's data that was lost was being hosted in Microsoft's data centres at the time.[4] Some media reports have suggested that Microsoft hired Hitachi to perform an upgrade to its storage area network (SAN), when something went wrong, resulting in data destruction.[5] Microsoft held no working backup of the data.[6]
The Danger/Sidekick episode is the latest in a series of cloud computing mishaps that have raised questions about the reliability of such offerings. [7]
On 15 October, 2009, Microsoft said they had been able to recover most or all data and would begin to restore it[8][9].
References
- ^ "Microsoft's Pink Struggles Spill Over To Sidekick". ChannelWeb (UMB). 12 October 2009. http://www.crn.com/software/220600334;jsessionid=KCFRRMAUPYH2NQE1GHOSKH4ATMY32JVN?pgno=1.
- ^ a b "The Sidekick catastrophe: A curse for Microsoft, but a blessing for Motorola?". Betanews. 12 October 2009. http://www.betanews.com/article/The-Sidekick-catastrophe-A-curse-for-Microsoft-but-a-blessing-for-Motorola/1255361704.
- ^ [1]
- ^ "Danger no backups". The Inquirer. 12 October 2009. http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1558214/danger-backups.
- ^ "Sidekick failure rumors point fingers at outsourcing, lack of backups". engadget. 11 October 2009. http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/11/sidekick-failure-rumors-point-fingers-at-outsourcing-lack-of-ba/.
- ^ "Microsoft kills the Sidekick. The first smart phone is dead". ComputerWorld. 11 October 2009. http://blogs.computerworld.com/14893/microsoft_kills_the_sidekick_the_first_smart_phone_is_dead.
- ^ "From Sidekick to Gmail: A short history of cloud computing outages". NetworkWorld. 12 October 2009. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/101209-sidekick-cloud-computing-outages-short-history.html.
- ^ "UPDATE: Microsoft Says It Has Recovered Lost Sidekick Data". The Wall Street Journal. 15 October, 2009. http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20091015-710685.html. Retrieved 15 October, 2009.
- ^ "Microsoft recovers Sidekick data". BBC News. 15 October, 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8309218.stm. Retrieved 15 October, 2009.
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