14 DAY TRIAL // On March 12, 2009, Microsoft confirmed that Windows Live Hotmail was experiencing what the company referred to as a temporary outage. The software giant however failed to reveal any additional information; still, users were getting “server too busy” error messages, and reported that they were unable to connect in any manner. Microsoft only took a few hours to resolve the issue, which remains unspecified at this point in time. Hotmail members started being able to log in into their accounts even if they were greeted by messages informing them that the service was temporarily unavailable, just before Windows Live Hotmail went live again.
“We are aware that some of you may be experiencing difficulty accessing your Windows Live Hotmail accounts right now. We’re actively investigating the cause and are working to fix this as quickly as possible. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience and disruption this may be causing you,” revealed a member of the Windows Live team on March 12, 2009.
Microsoft has yet to reveal the issue that caused the Windows Live Hotmail blackout. This even if the outage was widespread, judging from the amount of feedback generated by users being locked out of their accounts. Still, the service is now up and running with no problems whatsoever. Microsoft is by no means the only provider of online email services hit by blackouts. Last month, Google had similar problems with Gmail and Google News.
“The Hotmail team reports that "service has been restored" and they are "taking steps to make sure this doesn’t happen again",” the Windows Live team representative added. “Please report any new Hotmail loss of service here or here (select Hotmail in the list of services), so that the team can investigate and resolve each problem as soon as possible.”