MOBILE

MOBILE

Microsoft personnel are working around the clock to restore personal data lost during a recent outage of the company’s Sidekick mobile device, and Steve Ballmer, the software giant’s chief executive officer, says his company needs to do more to assure enterprise customers that a similar mistake won’t occur in the future. Ballmer said it was imperative for Microsoft to “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.” Network World (10/19) , InformationWeek (10/19) , CNET/Beyond Binary (10/19)

Google is said to be planning to release its own smartphone directly through retailers, as opposed to through a carrier partnership, in what could be a huge disruption to the industry’s business model. Google’s phone “could be the first credible competitor to the iPhone.” (Iwantmedia 10/21, Internet News10/20)