For about a week now Sidekick users have found themselves without access to their precious data, contacts, and after Apple Insider published an alleged disgruntled Danger employee's take on it; folks now "know" that Microsoft seems to be the culprit.
Money quote from AppleInsider's spy:
"What's worse is that apparently Microsoft has been lying to [T-Mobile] this whole time about the amount of resources that they've been putting behind Sidekick development and support (in reality, it was cut down to a handful of people in Palo Alto managing some contractors in Romania, Ukraine, etc.)."
Now keep in mind this has explicitly been filed as a RUMOR simply cuz there's no proof that Microsoft is sabotaging a division they paid a lot of money for but there seems to be enough folks out there that think this could be a possibility.
Why Killing the Sidekick is Believable:
Although there are many customers that are quite content with their Sidekicks (my teenage cousins for one), the platform requires maintenance, development for new devices, and above all resources. Microsoft picked up Danger for the purpose of working on Project Pink - a rumored MS branded phone; killing the Sidekick would be a natural step in consolidating resources and efforts on one project.
A system-wide failure of the Sidekick would create outrage from subscribers; everyone was going to blame T-Mobile. It sucks being the front office as customers know you and not necessarily all the moving parts. Purposely creating this kind of failure or even failing to address the issue within a couple of days would put a lot of pressure on a company to find an alternative product to use; a wholly Microsoft branded phone or even phones running a Microsoft branded OS not only fills this need but gives customers assurance of an already existing product.
So is the blogosphere grasping at straws here? Maybe, but sometimes an idea may be so crazy that it may just be right.
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