WebProNews

A little less than one month ago, Google introduced an experimental version of Gmail that could work without an Internet connection, and we ran the headline "Gmail Goes Offline (In A Good Way)" as a result.  This morning, minus the part in parentheses, the same title could apply.

An international Gmail outage began around 9:30 AM GMT, and continued for three to four hours.  This was fine timing as far as most Americans were concerned, of course - outages don't matter when you're asleep - but it wasn't so convenient for our friends in the UK and other European countries.

 

Lots of business users were affected, so it's quite possible that Google will have to compensate some people with free extensions of their Premier Edition Google Apps accounts.  Defections to competing services seem likely to occur, too.

Anyway, although things are now working again in most areas, Google hasn't yet discussed the outage's cause.  The last post on the Official Google Blog simply states, "We're working very hard to solve the problem and we're really sorry for the inconvenience. . . .  Thanks for bearing with us while we sort this out."

The post also plugs offline Gmail.