Again, nice to hear this talk of a full data restoration after T-Mobile’s warning that all personal data had been permanently lost. Clearly, Microsoft (MSFT) is doing everything in its power to remedy the issue, which has led many to question the company’s protocols for redundancy and server failure, and beyond these, whether the software giant can even be trusted to safeguard user data. As Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told Network World, the Sidekick fiasco was “not good.”

“It is something we are going to have to address and explain to customers, our method and process and quality approach and what went wrong in that case and how we are making sure that it does not happen again,” Ballmer said. “Non-Sidekick users, we are not earning their trust back but I think people are going to say, ‘Hey, look, show me what you are doing to insure this does not happen to me.’”

Kara and the Boomtown blog were in New York this week and started the party early with Bob Pittman–well known media and Web exec. Kara wasn’t dancing on the tables, but did admit that Pittman’s new venture, a top-shelf tequila, was plenty tasty. BoomTown went straight from the sauce to the nose candy in a short interview with Ford’s (F) social media guru, Scott Monty. While Monty might have been using cocaine as a metaphor for a new kind of marketing that changes consumption of all other marketing, Weekend Update gets his subtext. As if BoomTown didn’t have enough hardcore “cred,” Kara headed off to fabulous Las Vegas for the annual meeting of the blogs at BlogWorld. Nothing that happens in Vegas this weekend will stay there–not with thousands of bloggers roaming the Strip in search of a new meme to latch on to.

Digital Daily trapped a Snow Leopard early in the week. John reported on Apple’s (APPL) admission that the Snow Leopard version of OS X occasionally overdelivers on its promise to free-up disk space. In certain circumstances, the furry filcher can sneak in and make off with all your user data. If it was data loss you were looking for though, no one beats the good folks at Danger who, up until recently, housed all kinds of personal data associated with the Sidekick line of smart phones. The Microsoft (MSFT) subsidiary permanently lost contact, calendar and other personal data associated with many accounts. Weekend Update thinks that Sidekick users were given fair warning, though; the company name is, after all, Danger. John rounded out the week with something unusual–good economic news from the tech sector: Intel (INTC), Google (GOOG), IBM (IBM) and AMD (AMD) were all feeling a little more flush than their prognosticators had predicted, each beating their admittedly dismal forecasts by at least a little.

MediaMemo followed up on some important stories, beginning the week with Twitter’s spam problem. Peter reported that the Web’s biggest microblogging pipeline updated its tools for trapping the flotsam and jetsam. Twitter is reportedly in talks with several leading search engines that want to feed on all that delicious real-time data. Peter also updated the readers on the tough times over at Condé Nast. This round of cuts was a little closer to the magazine publisher’s crown jewels than last week’s cuts and closings, with the layoff of at least six staffers from Vogue. Peter closed out the week with a cheeky little open letter to the Federal Trade Commission. He asked some important questions regarding the FTC’s recent obsession with bloggers and disclosure. He seems to think that most serious bloggers don’t like to sell their credibility for tiny discounts to obscure events.

Walt and Katie were all over Windows 7 this week, with help on all fronts for those making “the switch.” Before he got to that, though, Walt spent some personal tech time with some supersmart phones. He elevated Motorola’s (MOT) CLIQ and RIM’s (RIMM) BlackBerry Storm2 to the level of potential iPhone killer and praised their updated features and power as mobile computers rather than simply phones. Mossberg’s Mailbox heralded the beginning of the Windows 7 flood and was chock full of questions about upgrading and replacing some of the functionality that was built into Vista. The Great One also offered thoughts on installing Windows 7 on a virtual machine running in OS X, but couldn’t speak to the boot camp option until Apple releases more info…and the proper drivers.

Katie tested PC Mover from LapLink as an all-in-one option for moving precious data to Windows 7. While she praised the $15 program’s efficiency, she thought it was a little sleazy that it also tried to get her to purchase other programs while it had her data in its clutches. All went well, and the moral of the story is that this one-trick pony upgrade assistant was worth the minimal price tag.

Breaking News: Weekend Update is getting intermittent reports that Kara may have been kidnapped from BlogWorld by a roving band of mommybloggers in white robes, all slowly chanting “mon-eh-tize” as they piled into their Honda minivans. They may or may not have sealed her into a 30 foot-wide, saucer-shaped balloon, which could be floating westward toward the Bay Area.

If we get her back, you can look forward to another fully staffed, fully loaded week at AllThingsD.

“We are pleased to report that we have recovered most customer data for those Sidekick customers whose data was affected by the recent outage,” Roz Ho, corporate VP of Microsoft’s ironically named Premium Mobile Experiences division, said in a letter to customers.

“We plan to begin restoring users’ personal data as soon as possible, starting with personal contacts, after we have validated the data and our restoration plan. We will then continue to work around the clock to restore data to all affected users, including calendar, notes, tasks, photographs and high scores, as quickly as possible.”

That’s quite a change from what Microsoft (MSFT) said a few days ago when it warned that user data had “almost certainly” been lost and that the likelihood of recovering it was “extremely low.” Still, it’s clearly the best outcome for a bad situation.

T-Mobile has pulled its Sidekick handsets off the market following a back-end server failure that resulted in many users losing their personal data. Surf over to the carrier’s Web site and you’ll find that it now lists the entire Sidekick line of devices as “temporarily out of stock.” Evidently, T-Mobile would prefer to resolve the current service issues before it resumes selling the Sidekick–not that anyone would buy one right now anyway.

Microsoft (MSFT) and T-Mobile still haven’t explained why the server failure occurred and more importantly, why they don’t have a backup of lost user data. Meanwhile, speculation is mounting that the failure was caused by an attempted storage area network transition without contingency plans.

“Regrettably, based on Microsoft/Danger’s latest recovery assessment of their systems, we must now inform you that personal information stored on your device–such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos–that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger. That said, our teams continue to work around-the-clock in hopes of discovering some way to recover this information. However, the likelihood of a successful outcome is extremely low.”

Microsoft (MSFT) hasn’t yet said what caused the failure, though some speculate it was a bungled storage area network upgrade performed without backup. Nor has the company said why it doesn’t have a copy of Sidekick user data (I’ve asked Microsoft for comment and will update here if and when one is offered).

There’s likely a reasonable explanation for the service disruption and server failure, but it’s hard to imagine one for unrecoverable data loss. Danger should have had a redundant backups of user data. Clearly, it didn’t, or if it did, they were abysmally unreliable. Either way, this is an ugly embarrassment for Danger and Microsoft and one that will probably cost them the trust of Sidekick users.

Sadly, Danger seems to have lived up to its name.

Really? Leaving aside for a moment the fact that Microsoft already has a mobile OS in Windows Mobile and the fact that RIM’s client architecture is, you know, based on Linux, wouldn’t a merger between two of the largest players in the smartphone market invite antitrust scrutiny?

Why?

“It completes the picture for us in terms of making the transition from just being on the business side of things to being on the consumer side of things,” said Robbie Bach, Microsoft’s president of entertainment and devices.

Seems Microsoft really is serious about the consumer cellphone business after all. But what’s it going to do with Danger? Said Jupiter analyst Michael Gartenberg, “The SideKick had strong appeal as the anti-BlackBerry for younger audiences and it will be really interesting to see how MSFT integrates the technology, business model and overall device cachet to a culture more at home selling to enterprise CIOs than it is selling to rock stars.”

Could this be the beginning of a Zune-based cellphone ?

Google never said much about the acquisition or its plans for Rubin, but he’s been on the company’s payroll ever since, presumably holed up somewhere on its campus in Mountain View, Calif., working on something–perhaps with the “graphics-software fanatics” from Skia, another mysterious mobile start-up Google acquired in 2005. Together they’d make quite a team–Rubin with his passion for location-aware mobile devices and Skia’s engineers with theirs for the robust, but portable, graphics engines that could be used in them. Theoretically, of course.

Why the history lesson? Well, industry sources tell The Wall Street Journal that Google might publicly detail its long-rumored mobile-phone project as early as Monday. “U.S. carriers likely to be part of the announcement are T-Mobile and Sprint, according to our sources, but there could be others by the time Google says its piece,” the Journal reports. “While Sprint appears to be agreeing to work with Google to put the Web giant’s new Linux-based open operating system into phones, T-Mobile will probably go even further: the company has worked with Google for months on plans to build Google-powered phones with a variety of Google software and applications. As far as handset partners for Google, Taiwan’s HTC is a likely bet, our sources say. Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson are also possible, but we’ll wait and see the full roster. Equally interesting will be who isn’t on the list.”

Indeed. Because whoever’s not on that list could be losing out on a chance to become a true player in the mobile-search advertising business, which research outfit the Kelsey Group recently claimed will grow to $1.4 billion in 2012 from $33.2 million this year–in the United States alone.

Given Google’s well-documented efforts to set up a free Wi-Fi network in San Francisco, we believe the upcoming spectrum auctions could represent a rare opportunity for the company to acquire something resembling an exclusive (licensed) nationwide WiMax footprint, and largely eliminate any access dependency on third parties. As such, we believe Google’s potential involvement bears watching, especially in light of the fact the company has shown little hesitation in delving into the other aspects of networking. Google’s selection of equipment vendors, such as Force10 and Infinera, indicate to us a willingness to embrace leading-edge technologies, and we believe WiMax fits that description.”

–Joe Chiasson, Susquehanna Financial Group, February 2006

This morning Google announced an alliance with Sprint Nextel that will see the two companies working together to bring Google’s search, digital mapping technologies and GTalk chat service to Sprint’s WiMax network, which, once it’s completed, will theoretically allow wireless Web access at speeds and prices similar to cable connections.

The deal follows the announcement of Sprint’s plans to collaborate with Clearwire to build out a nationwide WiMax network by the end of 2008. It also follows Google’s conditional pledge to drop at least $4.6 billion on the Federal Communications Commission’s auction of the 700-megahertz spectrum, which has long been said to be the future of WiMax (with fewer line-of-sight issues and wider coverage and better building penetration).

Coincidence? Or part of a master plan in which Google wins the 700-megahertz spectrum, uses it to help complete the Sprint/Clearwire nationwide WiMax network effort and then announces the long-rumored Google Phone–upending the telco-cable duopoly in the process?