The good news is that Microsoft says it thinks it can get most of your data back. The bad news is how the problem happened in the first place.

OK, here’s the good news about the Microsoft/Sidekick data loss fiasco: Microsoft corporate vice president Roz Ho claims that “We have recovered most, if not all, customer data for those Sidekick customers whose data was affected by the recent outage.” Here’s the bad news, the data was lost in the first place because of a “system failure that created data loss in the core database and the back-up.”

I’ll get back to why that’s bad, but first, let me point out that Microsoft isn’t saying the problem’s all better now. They’re saying that they think they can get most of the data back for most Sidekick users. Microsoft engineers are working on restoring customer data, starting with contact lists and then moving on to other information. But, “Before Microsoft begins this process, the company must first check the data to make sure it is stable and finalize the data restoration plan.”

In other words, don’t hold your breath. I’ll be interested in seeing how many of the burned Sidekick users actually get all their data back at the end of the day.

More >