Sidekick fiasco highlights need for mobile backups

IDG News Service - The loss of personal data that Sidekick users in the U.S. have suffered shows how important data stored on mobile phones has become.

A service disruption this weekend at Sidekick provider Danger Inc. resulted in the Microsoft subsidiary losing mobile customer data. In this case, Microsoft failed to back up user data, but few users take the proper precautions to protect the growing amount of data stored on their smartphones, said Nick Jones, vice president at market research company Gartner Inc.

That opinion is seconded by Paolo Pescatore, analyst at CCS Insight. "To be honest, most people don't back up the data that is stored on the phone. How many stories do we hear now of people losing their phone, and saying that I had pictures from when my baby was born and now I have lost them," he said.

The information kept on smartphones isn't just contacts and photos, but also data and content stored by the growing number of applications that users install. Smartphones have become as much of a tool as laptops, Jones said.

"Therefore you really have to treat a smartphone as a PC, and you have to be prepared to back up the information on a regular basis," Jones said.

Mobile phone manufacturers and operators recognize the need for backup service and have started offering a number of different services. But those services have largely been ignored by users, Jones said.

"I think [users] sort of assume that the phone is secure, and having to pay extra for something they thought they had anyway hasn't gone down well," he said.

It's partly a question of educating users to understand that they are carrying a computer in their pocket, and that it's not just a phone anymore, Jones said.

But mobile phone makers should also aim to build better PC connectivity solutions, said Carolina Milanesi, research director at Gartner. A lot of people don't back up their data because it is too cumbersome, she said.

The use of backup services will increase and will become a way for carriers and mobile phone vendors to retain their users and increase loyalty, said Pescatore. Once users store large amounts of information with one carrier they will perceive it as more difficult to move to another carrier, he said.