Gmail reliability

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Google executives say that their Gmail service is currently running at a 99.9 percent reliability rate. Speaking to reporters on the recent outages affecting Gmail, Google's Sergey Brin said that one outage could have been resolved in five to 10 minutes, but the company made errors that extended recovery time to an hour. Brin said the company is also working to group customers so one outage has a limited impact.

Meanwhile IBM has launched LotusLive iNotes, an on-demand e-mail, calendaring and contact management system meant to compete with Gmail. LotusLive iNotes is based on technology IBM purchased from the Hong Kong company Outblaze. Sean Poulley, vice president of online collaboration at IBM, said that no company can guarantee a 100 reliability rate for on-demand applications. But IBM has a long-standing track record of running "the world's mission-critical systems," he said.