In case you’re not up to speed, since around Friday the 2nd users of T-Mobile’s Sidekick hiptop have been without the Danger network. This means no web browsing, contacts, calendars, etc. For many, a huge disruption of daily and business life. In a statement to users, T-Mobile states that a catastrophic data failure has been the result of the Danger network’s outage, and loss of all user’s personal data. Now ten days into the outage, there is still no explanation as to why this has occurred, but there are rumors.

but it wasn’t T-Mobile’s fault!

I’m seeing this argument from a lot of people, and I’m not exactly sure why. Everyone wants to blame Microsoft (who now owns Danger). Microsoft isn’t without blame, but neither is T-Mobile. In trying to counter my point, someone asked me, “Who hosts the websites of your clients? If their sites failed, would you be blamed?” This is actually a perfect analogy. The answer is a 3rd party hosts them, and yes, we’d still be blamed. Why? Because we recommend the vendors, and we advise our clients whom to work with. Our customers aren’t responsible for making sure they’re using the right vendors, we are—That’s what they’re paying us for. The same applies to T-Mobile.

T-Mobile sells the Sidekick, charges for it, and contracts with Microsoft/Danger to provide the data services. That does not make T-Mobile inculpable for the recent events. T-Mobile would certainly have its own internal set of rules and standards regarding the storage and treatment of customer’s personal information. Their CIO is ultimately responsible for ensuring these standards are met. Just because a 3rd party is providing the services does not abdicate oneself from ensuring the vendor implements and upholds your standards.

This was absolutely T-Mobile’s fault, for their failure to monitor Microsoft/Danger, and oversee that their practices were up to T-Mobile’s standards. Had T-Mobile taken the necessary steps to work with Microsoft/Danger, this might have been avoided. Going back to my analogy, if a client’s website is completely lost thanks to the company that provides the hosting services, then we, the agency, are ultimately answerable and responsible, not the hosting company. The scenario is the same. T-Mobile should have done more to watch over the situation at Microsoft/Danger, especially considering T-Mobile’s stake in the Sidekick brand.

It will be interesting to see what happens Monday, when the next statement from T-Mobile is scheduled to appear to customers.

UPDATE: I am not the only one who feels this way. And based on the timestamps, Engadget and I were writing this at almost the same time.

“T-Mobile, a sideline player in this carnage that ultimately still shoulders responsibility for taking users’ cash month after month and keeping tabs on the robustness of its partners’ workflows. We’re betting that heads are going to roll at both of these companies…”