Bonum Certa Men Certa

Lawsuits Against Microsoft Turn to Class Action Lawsuit While Microsoft Mobiles Become Dying Breed

Danger sign for Microsoft



Summary: Microsoft to face class action lawsuit over the Danger fiasco; Windows Mobile carries on losing to Linux

MICROSOFT gets sued quite a lot, and this latest lawsuit is by all means justified.



The short story is that Microsoft lost data (apparently due to negligence), so although some of it could be recovered a week later, great damage had already been done. The lawsuit that we mentioned some days ago (and correctly predicted) is not an isolated case; as pointed out the other day, class action was probably inevitable and indeed it is:

Class Action Suit Filed after T-Mobile and Microsoft Lose Data T-Mobile Sidekick Users Store on their Phones



A class action lawsuit places the spotlight on T-Mobile, subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom (NYSE:DT) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) for losing most all the contacts, appointments, photos and other data stored by as many as one million users of the popular T-Mobile Sidekick line of mobile phones.

The T-Mobile Sidekick data service went down in early October and then T-Mobile admitted that Microsoft’s Danger, Inc. subsidiary, which is responsible for the Sidekick data service, lost most all of the personal data it was entrusted with protecting, and that it was highly unlikely it would recover any data.


Microsoft Nick tries to downplay the lawsuits and CRN agrees that it may be the end of the Sidekick.

Many T-Mobile customers saw Microsoft's February 2008 acquisition of Danger as a death knell for their beloved Sidekick.


As one source put it a while ago, "T-Mobile halts Sidekick sales after data loss" (that's the headline which percolates through the wires).

In another article from CRN, the following point is raised:

Lobel said that going forward, responsibility would have to be determined on a legal front as cloud services gain more traction with customers. And ultimately, he said, the company trusted to directly manage customer data should be held responsible for its loss, whether it's outsourced or not.

"Customers look to (companies) for protection of their information. Customer look to the companies they do business with," Lobel said. "At the end of the day, you can outsource a function, but you cannot outsource responsibility."


Seth Weintraub from IDG goes with the headline "Microsoft kills the Sidekick. The first smart phone is dead." The same message reaches PCWorld (IDG) whilst InfoWorld (also IDG) states in the headline that "Microsoft learns the hard way: Back up our data!"

The Seattle press and The Register look at some other issues while the Wall Street Journal generalises this to Windows Mobile. GigaOM calls it "Microsoft Mobile’s Worst Week Ever" and one of our readers writes about the highly disappointing Windows Mobile 6.5.

To say I was a dissatisfied customer would be an understatement, however thats in the past. I’ve learnt my lesson and won’t consider a Microsoft solution in a phone ever again. I will not though dwell on that and after previous bad experiences with other Microsoft technologies I only have myself to blame for the decision to purchase it.


What does that all mean to Linux? Well, apart from two predictions this month (from analysts) that Linux would ultimately dominate the space, we have found this interesting article about the demise of Windows Mobile and rise of Android:

Microsoft smartphone OS is a hard sell



Amid all the talk last week of a "groundbreaking" partnership between Verizon Wireless and Google, word of Microsoft launching its revamped operating system, Windows Mobile 6.5, and Verizon introducing one of the first smartphones to run it, the HTC Imagio, largely fell on deaf ears.

Not that I'm surprised.

The Verizon-Google partnership is a big deal. It not only ensures Google's touch-screen Android operating system will make it onto cell phones nationwide, it finally will give consumers a worthy alternative to the Apple iPhone and AT&T.


A week ago we wrote about Samsung's bad impact on Android and now we find Microsoft's friend Samsung ganging up to advance Windows Mobile [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].

In summary, Microsoft fails badly in mobile phones, whereas Linux is gaining, sometimes at Windows' expense. Our reader Will concludes by pointing to this post about Pink/Danger, adding that "it doesn't inspire confidence in Microsoft as a cloud vendor. Especially if that is really how the problem happened."

Recent Techrights' Posts

Gemini Links 16/07/2025: Tmux and OCC25 Working TLS
Links for the day
Reboots Should Never be Necessary
"BUT WHAT ABOUT SECURITY!!"
There's Still Hope for the World Wide Web
Let's hope that the trajectory of the Web won't be leading us to over-reliance on Google, nor will it reward worthless slopfarms
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: Smolweb and Alhena 5.1.7
Links for the day
 
Links 16/07/2025: China’s Economy Grows Steadily, France Takes Action Regarding Harm to Children by GAFAM and Fentanylware (TikTok)
Links for the day
It is Not About Politics
Beware the people who try to make this about politics
Good Journalism Saves Lives
a shocking number of women die or get seriously hurt every day due to violence from a partner
Recognition of Women's Contributions to Free Software
Being passive is not an option when bad things are happening
Slopfarms Are Going to Perish Because Public Opinion is Changing
Many slopfarms will simply go offline
19 Years of Standing Up for Justice, Equality, and Truth
This week we shall take it up a notch
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 15, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 15, 2025
Links 15/07/2025: LLM Pollution and Pushback in Ukraine
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: xkcd, New Cert, and Alhena Gemlog
Links for the day
Links 15/07/2025: Press Freedom at Risk and New Facebook Blunders
Links for the day
The Danes Want GNU/Linux
David Heinemeier Hansson recently moved to GNU/Linux
Cory Doctorow Explains Why Software Freedom Matters, Whereas "Open Source" Misses the Point and Helps Monopolies
It's a very long article
BillPR (EpsteinGate-Bribed NPR) is Turning Into a Partial Slopfarm that Promotes Slop
"I went on a date with a chatbot!"
Two Weeks Passed Since Latest Large Wave of Microsoft Layoffs, More Expected Next Month
Blaming the debt on "AI" is just self-serving storytelling
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 14, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 14, 2025
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: Gemini "Style Sheets" and Switching From Microsoft GitHub to Codeberg
Links for the day
Coming Soon: Another OSI Scandal, This One Implicating Molly de Blanc
OSI has been fairly quiet lately
Outreachy & Debian pregnancy cluster, Meike Reichle evidence
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Again, "Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People"
Microsoft Lunduke is not trying to "protect" Linux
XBox is Rapidly Turned Into a Slopfarm by Microsoft
Slop isn't about efficiency and saving money
One of the Most Hilarious Things About the Microsoft SLAPPs
It's so ridiculous
Financial Support for the Free Software Foundation or the GNU Project
The FSF has extended until Friday its fund-raising campaign
Illegally Hiding (or Demanding Secrecy Around) Illegal Requests or Attempts at Extortion
unlawful communications like threats
Microsoft's Halloween Documents and systemd, Wayland, Etc.
Maybe one day Wayland will be widespread. Or maybe not.
Gemini Links 14/07/2025: BOFH Archive, Updating Old Palm PDAS, and Nginx vs Slop Bots
Links for the day
Ubuntu is Becoming GAFAM-Like
What does that say about Canonical and Ubuntu?
Slopfarms Which Take Real Articles About GNU/Linux and Turn Them Into Copycats Which Are False
Even before the LLM hype those were quite common
The Firm That Picks on Techrights is Accustomed to Working With Criminals
Techrights never did anything illegal. So why is it being picked on by people who work with criminals?
Microsoft Said the Mass Layoffs Were for "Investment" in "AI", But It's Also Laying Off the "AI" and "Copilot" Staff
Months ago we showed many so-called "AI" people were getting the boot and this time it's the same
DryDeadFish is Dead, Long Live DryDeadFish
We kept checking, hoping it can recover from some temporary technical issue
For Quite Some Time Already Microsoft Attracts Crackpots, Scams, and More
Occasionally we talk about the situation at IBM as there are many parallels
Links 14/07/2025: Chatbots Broken Again, McHire LLM Shows Limits of the Hype
Links for the day
Changing One's Name Won't Change One's Past
People who have earned a bad reputation are not magically "entitled" to reset
People Who Assault Women Are Not Victims of "Distress"
It seems like an American tradition. In a country with almost 50 presidents, not even one was a female.
Slashdot Media Turned Linux Journal Into a Slopfarm and Now Slashdot Actively Promotes Anti-Linux Slopfarms
Yes, "no-nonsense" apparently means actual nonsense
Adoption of Gemini Protocol Still Growing
Gemini Protocol is being obscured by the media - it doesn't help that Google 'hijacked' the word "Gemini" - but people still manage to find out about it, download a client, and use it
Links 14/07/2025: Arresting Photographers, Threats to Revoke US Citizenship Over Criticism
Links for the day
More EPO Leaks on the Way
We hope that Mr. Rowan will actually try to refute what we say and show, not merely point the finger at the messengers
Decommodification is a Corporate Strategy Against Communities
systemd is led by Microsoft and hosted by Microsoft
copyleft.org 'Hijacked' by the People Who Attack the Person Who Created Copyleft
So far there's nothing "tasteless" in copyleft.org, but that can change at any time in the future
Asking People to Take Down Articles and Videos Only Makes These More Popular and "Viral"
If you do something bad, one of the worst things you can possibly do it try to silence those who speak about it
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 13, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 13, 2025
Two-Thirds Towards FSF Goal, Richard Stallman to Give Talks in Europe
There are 67 left before reaching the target
Brett Wilson LLP "Takes it Personal" (Character Assassination, Not Professionalism). Everybody Can See That.
On behalf of violent men
Gemini Links 14/07/2025: Politicised Tech and "Leaving GitHub"
Links for the day