loosy|goosy|ness - Blog

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Apple's MobileMe and Google's Gmail online e-mail services suffered hours-long outages Monday, leaving millions of users unable to access their accounts.

Google restored service within about two and a half hours, but it took Apple approximately seven hours to restore full access to its online mail service.

Apple users first reported trouble accessing the service's servers from their desktop mail clients around 2 p.m. Eastern, and in the next several hours, posted several hundred messages on the MobileMe support forum about the outage.

A notice on the service's main support page acknowledged the problem. "MobileMe members are intermittently unable to access MobileMe Mail using a desktop e-mail application, iPhone or iPod touch," said Apple. "Access to www.me.com/mail is unaffected. Service will be restored ASAP. We apologize for any inconvenience."

By 9 p.m. Eastern that notice had been replaced with an all-clear indicator.

Google's Gmail, meanwhile, went offline around 5 p.m. Eastern, and greeted users with a message reading in part, "We're sorry, but your Gmail account is currently experiencing errors."

A little over two hours later, Google added a notice to its Gmail help page that attributed the outage to "the contacts system used by Gmail which is preventing Gmail from loading properly. We are starting to roll out a fix now and hope to have the problem resolved as quickly as possible."

Shortly after that, at about 7:30 p.m., Google declared the outage over. "Users who were temporarily affected by the 502 errors should now be able to access their account," read a message posted to the Gmail Help Discussion forum. "Thanks for your patience while we worked to resolve this issue for everyone."

Apple users were especially livid, in part because they, unlike Gmail's users, pay for their service, and also because of the multiple problems they had with MobileMe since its launch a month ago.

"I'm so disgusted with Apple right now I don't even know what to say," said a user identified as "Furi0us.Bee" in a message posted to the longest forum thread on the subject.

"This is crazy," said another user, "mac_wa," on the same thread. "I have had more down time with my mac/me mail than any other service I've had... and I pay for this."

But Owen Schultz had one of the best takes of any user. "Dear MS Outlook," Schultz started, "I am so sorry about our breakup several year ago. I have been thinking about you a lot since then. Will you please consider taking me back? Just one more chance? I'm sorry about all the horrible things I said about you and your operating system. You were the best I ever had! MobileMe and I are finished!"

MobileMe's travails -- ranging from an extended migration from its predecessor, .Mac, to an 11-day mail outage last month -- prompted Apple's CEO, Steve Jobs, to issue a memo to company employees last week in which he called the rollout "not up to Apple's standards."

Jobs shook up Apple's management team over the series of snafus, and handed responsibility for the service to Eddy Cue, who heads iTunes.
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Source: www.infoworld.com

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[...]
"It's about time. Great for Microsoft. Great for Yahoo shareholders. These Internet markets are winner-take-all markets and they cannot be built. Time is too valuable. Yahoo has one of the best positions on the Internet because it's integrated brand (advertising) with search.
[...]
"They have to do it because they've tried everything they can do to fix MSN. Yahoo is the most visited site in the world, so it goes without saying that given the current valuation, this is the perfect time for them to buy it. "Google is running away with the search market and that's obviously the best part of the market. The likelihood that Google gets caught is slim to none. "You might not catch Google, but you can still be a legitimate player."
[...]
"We think it is great for Yahoo shareholders. This consolidates the marketplace down to Google versus Microsoft. Their multiple areas overlap -- not just search but also applications. Google's been pushing hard into the application space. "Yahoo mail continues to be much slower than the Gmail product. Yahoo search continues to lose share to Google. Asked whether Google might counterbid for Yahoo he said, "There is really nothing there that Google wants that they (Google) don't have."
[...]
"Microsoft has been getting more aggressive with acquisitions. We've seen them start to step up and buy large public players. Strategically, it makes sense. "It's a fair price. Clearly Yahoo shares have been under pressure. Microsoft wants to get it done, and get it done quickly. Trying to offer them a 10 percent premium would be kind of foolish. You'd create a problem, you'd let other bidders get into the fray.
[...]
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More on: http://www.reuters.com/

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The openness of the Internet is what made Google -- and Yahoo! -- possible. A good idea that users find useful spreads quickly. Businesses can be created around the idea. Users benefit from constant innovation. It's what makes the Internet such an exciting place.

So Microsoft's hostile bid for Yahoo! raises troubling questions. This is about more than simply a financial transaction, one company taking over another. It's about preserving the underlying principles of the Internet: openness and innovation.

Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC? While the Internet rewards competitive innovation, Microsoft has frequently sought to establish proprietary monopolies -- and then leverage its dominance into new, adjacent markets.

Could the acquisition of Yahoo! allow Microsoft -- despite its legacy of serious legal and regulatory offenses -- to extend unfair practices from browsers and operating systems to the Internet? In addition, Microsoft plus Yahoo! equals an overwhelming share of instant messaging and web email accounts. And between them, the two companies operate the two most heavily trafficked portals on the Internet. Could a combination of the two take advantage of a PC software monopoly to unfairly limit the ability of consumers to freely access competitors' email, IM, and web-based services? Policymakers around the world need to ask these questions -- and consumers deserve satisfying answers.

This hostile bid was announced on Friday, so there is plenty of time for these questions to be thoroughly addressed. We take Internet openness, choice and innovation seriously. They are the core of our culture. We believe that the interests of Internet users come first -- and should come first -- as the merits of this proposed acquisition are examined and alternatives explored.
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Source: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/

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Google has announced the acquisition of communications security and compliance company Postini for $625million.

Postini offers a number of on-demand communications security and compliance solutions and serves more than 35,000 businesses and 10 million users worldwide. Postini’s services include message security, archiving, encryption, and policy enforcement tools which can be used to protect a company’s email, instant messaging, and other web-based communications platforms. Notably Google was already utilizing Postini technology with Gmail; the acquisition would appear to be a case of Google wanting to own a technology it was already using under license.

The acquisition of Postini comes as a surprise following rumors in June that the company was working towards an IPO.

Dave Girouard, Vice President & General Manager, Google Enterprise wrote on the Google Blog of the need for Google to deliver products that support complex business rules, information security mandates, and an array of legal and corporate compliance issues.

We realized that we needed a more complete way to address these information security and compliance issues in order to better support the enterprise community. That’s why we’re excited to share the news that we’ve agreed to acquire Postini, a company that offers security and corporate compliance solutions for email, IM, and other web-based communications. Like Google Apps, Postini’s services are entirely hosted, eliminating the need to install any hardware or software. A leader in its field, Postini serves more than 35,000 businesses and 10 million users, and was one of our first partners for Google Apps. Their email and IM management services include inbound and outbound policy management, spam and virus protection, content filtering, message archiving, encryption, and more. We will continue to support Postini’s customers and we look forward to the possibilities ahead.

The acquisition is expected to be finalized by the end of the third quarter 2007.
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Source: http://www.techcrunch.com/

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We've officially acquired Postini
9/13/2007 03:07:00 PM
Posted by Dave Girouard, Vice President & General Manager, Google Enterprise

As of today, Postini becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of Google, and we couldn’t be happier about it. (Here's the FAQ.) Since July 9, when we announced the agreement to acquire Postini, plenty of businesses have told us how much they respect Postini and how the acquisition makes sense for customers of both companies.
We view this as welcome news, but also a sign of things to come. With the more than 100,000 businesses on Google Apps, 35,000 businesses and more than 10 million users of Postini products, we see great potential on both sides. We're committed to continue to deliver the type of innovative and useful business products our customers have come to expect. And we plan to announce even more product offerings in the very near future. Separately, both companies shared a vision for what the world of hosted applications can become for businesses of all sizes. Together, we look forward to achieving it.
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Source: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/