T-Mobile on Tuesday confirmed that it has resumed selling Sidekick, more than a month after a server failure with Microsoft's Danger subsidiary caused a massive Sidekick data outage and major public relations headache for T-Mobile.
According to T-Mobile, both of its Sidekick models will also now be cheaper.
"T-Mobile is pleased to announce that Sidekick sales have resumed," the company said in a statement Tuesday. "New pricing for the Sidekick LX 2009 will be $149.99 with a two-year contract and the Sidekick 2008 will be $49.99 with a two-year contract."
In early October, a number of T-Mobile customers lost personal data such as contacts and calendar items following a failure in the Microsoft Danger servers that provide the Sidekick service.
Microsoft later said that most of the data had been restored and also began offering Sidekick data recovery tools, although T-Mobile earlier this month said that a number of affected Sidekick users were still waiting on their data. T-Mobile also offered affected users a $100 T-Mobile gift card and a month of free data service.
No sooner did T-Mobile attempt to solve its Sidekick problems, however, than another major T-Mobile service outage occurred in early November. That outage affected about 5 percent of T-Mobile customers the night of Nov. 3, and lasted about eight hours before T-Mobile declared service had been restored.
Two service outages in the span of a month have done much to further weaken an already-struggling wireless carrier. T-Mobile must now bank on the forgiveness of Sidekick subscribers if it wants to remain relevant among this fall's crowded lineup of flashy new smartphones and handhelds.
