Hotmail follows Gmail in panicking users

After Gmail's failure two months back, arch-rival Microsoft's Hotmail has followed suit. A "temporary outage" of Microsoft's MSN, Windows Live and Hotmail services resulted in users being told they didn't have an e-mail inbox when they signed in, and they also were directed to sign up for new e-mail. The problem was resolved as of Friday morning, according to Microsoft. (See: Gmail failure sparks online panic)

"All Hotmail services are back to normal and the outage is resolved," the company said on its blog. "If you are still having problems, we encourage you to first try Windows Live Help. If you still have problems, you can submit your problem directly to the support team."

Microsoft said late Thursday night that users' inboxes - and e-mails - are "safe," and that the problem was due to an "incorrect message" that was sent out during "routine maintenance."

To say users were frightened by the outage would be an understatement. "When will I get my inbox back????!!!!" one poster on Microsoft's blog wrote. Another chimed in "OMG! I was absolutely panic-stricken all night!" While a third noted: "I thought that I had lost everything, like eight years of contacts."

Microsoft, however, said the outage is over and users can "rest assured that your inbox is safe." According to Microsoft, an incorrect message was sent out telling users they don't have an inbox. That was caused by a network issue Microsoft encountered during routine maintenance.

"We have corrected the problem and you should be able to access your Hotmail and other Windows Live services again now," the blog post said. "We apologize for any inconvenience that was caused by this issue, and we thank you for using Windows Live."

Despite Microsoft's assurance, however, problems persisted well into the morning, with users reporting sign-in problems. "Your messages are still intact on our servers, and you will have access to them as soon as the temporary outage is resolved," Microsoft told users.