• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, October 12, 2009

Microsoft's mobile woes lately only seem to get worse. After a week of service disruptions on the T-Mobile Sidekick, the carrier on Saturday informed customers that any personal data not currently on the smartphones had most likely been lost because of a server failure at Microsoft subsidiary Danger, which powers data services on the Sidekick. Oops. No backup.

As of Monday, T-Mobile has also stopped selling Sidekick phones online and in some retail stores following the service outage and subsequent user data loss, according to PhoneScoop. The Danger fiasco parallels the pounding Microsoft took in the blogosphere over the last week over the release of Windows Mobile 6.5.

If recent reports of the forthcoming Dell smartphone are accurate, the PC-maker has snubbed traditional partner Microsoft by choosing Google's Android mobile operating system to power the device instead of Windows Mobile. The beleaguered Microsoft OS, meanwhile, has continued to lose market share in the last year, falling to 9% among smartphone systems as rivals Apple and Research in Motion gain ground.

The Sidekick data debacle also casts doubt over Microsoft's "pink" phone project to create branded devices to be built on the Danger platform. Perhaps it's all a grand plan by the software giant to make the debut of Windows Mobile 7, rumored to be coming next April. It could either be the big comeback for Windows Mobile or a bigger disappointment than version 6.5 because so much will be riding on its success.