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T-Mobile Discontinuing Sidekick Sales Starting July 2

Jul 1, 2010, 2:14 PM by Eric M. Zeman

T-Mobile USA has decided to discontinue sales of the Sidekick family of devices starting on July 2. A T-Mobile spokesperson said to Phone Scoop in an email, "As T-Mobile looks to further innovate and raise the bar for the next iteration of the T-Mobile Sidekick, as of July 2, the Sidekick LX and Sidekick 2008 will no longer be available through T-Mobile, including retail stores, care, telesales and online. While we work on the next chapter of our storied Sidekick franchise, T-Mobile will continue to provide our loyal Sidekick customers with product service and support. Stay tuned for exciting updates in the months ahead, which we expect will provide customers with a new and fresh experience." T-Mobile has sold Sidekick devices for more than six years, with the last new version released in 2009. Sidekicks were known for their swivel-open displays and QWERTY keyboards. Most Sidekick devices were developed by Danger and manufactured by Sharp. Danger was acquired by Microsoft in 2008, and eventually became part of the team that developed the Kin line of devices for Verizon Wireless. Microsoft recently announced that it is halting all development and investment in the Kin line. Now that T-Mobile has end-of-life'd the Sidekick line, it is clear that change is taking place inside Microsoft's mobile business. T-Mobile temporarily halted sales of the Sidekick devices in October 2009 when the company lost customer data. It resumed sales in November 2009. Starting tomorrow, July 2, Sidekick devices will no longer be available.

source: T-Mobile

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Comments

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This forum is closed.

bluecoyote

Jul 1, 2010, 8:29 PM

Microsoft is a bunch of screw ups - Will HP be the next?

I just cannot believe Microsoft is still this dumb. They let the Sidekick- once one of my favorite phones- wither on the vine. Then they release the "Kin" , quite possibly the crappiest piece of crap I've seen (though honestly most touchscreen non-smartphones are almost equally bad.)

They lost all of Danger's top talent to Google and Palm (who lost it to Google.)

Makes me wonder if HP will be doing the same thing to WebOS.

pingpong

Totally agreed. Sidekick users were once SUPER loyal customers. That server crash and lack of support for this line of phones was very unfortunate.

Jayshmay

Well, HP already said they intend to use WebOS for printers & tablets. And supposedly there will be products out before years end. Talk about moving swiftly!

...

LWWill7999

bluecoyote said:
They lost all of Danger's top talent to Google and Palm (who lost it to Google.)

Actually, they didn't "loose" the #1 top talent at Danger, they canned him. Andy Rubin and I have been friends for...
(continues)

consmonaut

Jul 1, 2010, 2:35 PM

Odd wording... but its not the end.

Strange the article says T-mobile lost consumer information.

They didn't. Its well known to be on the danger servers. T-mobile just connected point a-b.

Either way, I would bet any one of you there will be a new sidekick phone in the future. Its been a somewhat iconic device and has (read had) a really good following.

I'm sure that there will be a new device that has the same design, but isn't so reliant on a 'cloud'.

iDont Care

consmonaut said:
Strange the article says T-mobile lost consumer information.

They didn't. Its well known to be on the danger servers. T-mobile just connected point a-b.

Either way, I would bet any one of you there will be a

...
(continues)

...

RockTripod

It will more than likely be Android-powered. The Sidekick moniker is owned by T-Mo, so I would guess they will just slap the name on a whole new line of phones. The wording of the press release seems to give a bit of credence to the Evo-with-a-keybo...
(continues)

...

iDont Care

Jul 1, 2010, 2:31 PM

Please....

don't tell me they actually thought the Kin was gonna take it's place and now since it failed that plan is scratched. 😲

LWWill7999

Actually, the short answer is YES, unbelievably.

As one of the very few people in the country outside of Danger/MS to test the phone prior to release during a focus group study in February, I saw it represented as the "new & cool social networking ...
(continues)

justfinethanku

Jul 1, 2010, 5:05 PM

I just have one simple word to say about this: Good.

I'm glad they are finally killing one of the many banes of my existence as a T-Mobile salesman. I refuse to sell them at my location, and now I don't have to explain why to all the little brats who want the god-forsaken device.

Danger/Microsoft can go to hell for the torcher they put me through over the last year.

Black_Beard

agreed 😁

Jayshmay

So do you work at one of those multiple carrier stores?

...

sathunak

Jul 1, 2010, 11:45 PM

review

🙂 its good n informative

furyx639

Jul 1, 2010, 3:19 PM

I had a feeling that Danger would die off under Microsoft's control.

It's hard to compete in this aggressive market where the majority of phones are now smartphones. They're going up against iOS, Android, WebOS, Blackberry, and Windows Phone 7.

It seems like the acquisition of Danger by Microsoft was only to help develop the fun-consumer friendly features into Windows Phone 7. Maybe they'll bring back the Sidekick form factor, perhaps running Windows Phone 7.

Daniel Dc5

Jul 1, 2010, 3:11 PM

Everyone knows....

This was going to happen, I have not seen, read or heard any one mention anything about the side kick in months. It was nice while it lasted but everyone knows Android is takin over this b$%^h whit all of its phones on the market.

SlaveforTT

Jul 1, 2010, 2:52 PM

They wont let me put the ? emoticon in the subject field...

😕 😕 The sidekick was an innovating phone when it came out. And for what its worth, it had a lot of good features and i think the best part of the device in my opinion, was the keyboard. i had a sidekick, a g1, and now a cliq, and i'll tell ya what...that sidekick keyboard was the shnittlevansnipsnap of all keyboards. at least from what ive been able to gather from experience 😕 😕 if tmobile plans to keep the sidekick thing going, they better take their time and do it right...before they lose what they had with it when it was an awesome phone

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