24 Feb 2009
Google's Gmail service was down on Tuesday morning, leaving many users with no access to their email, calendar or contact information.
Users of micro-blogging site Twitter complained that they could not load the site.
One Gmail user wrote on Twitter: "Seriously Gmail...I had some things to do this morning with you. You let me down. Hard."
Others talked of having to revert back to Lotus notes and other email accounts, while offline Gmail users celebrated still having access.
Meanwhile, Microsoft used the opportunity to poach users from its rival. " Need a new email account? Take a look at windowslive.co.uk - awesome!", twittered Mel Carson, Microsoft's advertising community blogger.
Google said that it is working on the problem, and has not yet determined the cause. A statement is due shortly.
A running script of problems Twitter users are having with their Google accounts can be seen here.
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Do you agree?
So what?
Sometimes Windows (which is not free like google) or other systems get locked or fail and you can't use them for a while o you lose your work from several hours. You don't have email? Use your phone. Or use another account, who is dependent on one email account these days? Come on... I have 5 or more accounts (hotmail,yahoo, google, 2 at my office, etc)
Posted by: Carlos Gongora 10 Mar 2009
Email is hard
Running email services takes expertise and experience few organizations have. And even with a great team, email services are a challenge to keep up even 99.9% of the time... which means down-time on average more than 8 hours a year. What makes it more challenging is IMAP sync, mobile device sync (Blackberry/iPhone/Palm), calendar sync, and more, that providers like Google (Apps) and Zimbra (see http://01.com for instance) have now built into their growing applications. What you pay for is a dedicated team to fix it, who have nothing better to do than make it work (again). That's worth it's weight...
Posted by: Garrison 25 Feb 2009
Gmail Glitch Sends Entire World into Anarchy and Chaos
Can you tone down the sensationalism a notch? I get enough of that on television "news".
Posted by: Ty 24 Feb 2009
Google Mail down - so what ?
People who are getting their knickers in a twist about this need to get out more.
Posted by: Dave Savage 24 Feb 2009
Time 2 Go Live!?
This is absolutely appalling! for those who use gmail as their customer service email, paypal account, or in anyway to run their business, they'll be obviously devastated and their businesses will remain stalled! Best to consider making a switch to one of Microsofts' services or go private! http://www.neocreatives.com
Posted by: Anthony 24 Feb 2009
Wow...I feel dumber now
Seriously Rosalie, I feel dumber having read this. Even if this is newsworthy (a real stretch if you ask me), did you think quoting the Internet's Valley Girl equivalent would make for a strong story? And, who are these 'Twits' (Twitter users, in case you missed that) who have time to sit around gloating about how they didn't have an issue because they work offline? Yeah! Seriously, I feel dumber with you in the world.
Posted by: JRath 24 Feb 2009
Google not down
Gmail's IMAP and POP services were working perfectly thru out the two hours or so that that webmail service was having trouble. And the webmail service is most definitely back up and running properly now. And it's _free_. And it's a _beta_. If it were a pay service, then complaints about a two hour outage might have some validity. As it is... grow up, wusses.
Posted by: James O'Shea 24 Feb 2009
"only" mail though
As far as I know (and experienced) the issue was on gmail incl Apps mail "only": calendar was functioning fine.
Posted by: HBE 24 Feb 2009
Gmail responses
Gmail is usually a highly reliable service and is used by a growing number of businesses (vnunet.com actually uses it to keep in touch with its freelancers). Therefore, Gmail going down is newsworthy. People want to know it is not just them having problems and why these problems are occurring. It has caused quite a bit of chaos for a lot of people this morning.
Posted by: Rosalie Marshall 24 Feb 2009
beta
see the logo still in beta if your prepared to risk your business to a service that google wont put to version 1 so be it.
Posted by: ed 24 Feb 2009
This IS a news story
Contrary to JRath's comments, I think this is newsworthy and certainly blogworthy - as per http://peterthomas.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/google-mail-problems/ I'm not sure what belittling a journalist for doing their job achieves aside from making yourself seem somewhat petty. BTW had to post this in IE7 as the verification code doesn't seem to work in Chome
Posted by: Peter Thomas 24 Feb 2009