MUST READ: Congress demands answers from Google over Glass privacy concerns

Topic: Microsoft

UK authorities investigating Microsoft's 99.9 percent cloud claim

Summary: Microsoft is being investigated over its 99.9 percent uptime claims for its Office 365 service, after a series of outages left users without email and communications.

Zack Whittaker

By for Between the Lines |

The UK's advertising agency is investigating Microsoft regarding its claims that the software giant "can guarantee 99.9 percent uptime" of its Office 365 cloud service.

The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) is the UK's independent regulator of advertising across all media, including marketing on websites and online spaces.

In another life, Microsoft's BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite) was known for its outages. Reborn into Office 365, Microsoft had made it clear that the old was out and the new was in. The service has, however, suffered a number of outages since its inception, forcing the advertising watchdog to question the company's claims.

Though Microsoft is often quick to explain why outages occur, many have complained before that the company is not forthcoming with solutions during the downtime -- let alone reflecting downtime or outage issues in the service's dashboard or health status reports.

(Source: Office 365)

The ASA confirmed last week that it was "investigating" a complaint over "marketing communication on Microsoft's website", questioning whether the "99.9 percent uptime was misleading and could be substantiated".

Microsoft's promotional material for Office 365 says clearly:

"You can count on Microsoft, an industry leader in productivity, for reliability. Microsoft provides a financially-backed 99.9% uptime guarantee."

The ASA recently ruled in favour of Apple over Samsung to challenge which smartphone giant could call their respective phones the "world's thinnest smartphone", at least within British territory.

Already, from January 1st, Microsoft has not achieved 99.9 percent of uptime, which led the case to arise in the first place. Downtime of over 8.7 hours a year requires Microsoft to compensate customers, according to its service-level agreement.
How long it will take for the advertising agency to make its final judgement, it is not clear. Reports suggest that it could take weeks or longer, "depending on the complexity of the issues raised".

Microsoft has not responded to questions at the time of publication.

Related:

Topic: Microsoft

Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily email newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.

Talkback

14 comments
Log in or register to join the discussion

  • RE: UK authorities investigating Microsoft's 99.9 percent cloud claim

    That's a dumb investigation. Although Microsoft does strive for 99.9% uptime there are things out of their control like hardware failures that may prevent it. Microsoft has been very good about compensating their customers after an outage as well. Given that, any investigation would be a waste of time of all parties involved.
    LoverockDavidson_-24231404894599612871915491754222
    Reply Vote

    • Then Microsoft needs to stop advertising a 99.9% uptime. [nt]

      [nt]
      olePigeon
      Reply Vote

      • Where does MS advertise a 99.9% uptime?

        @olePigeon
        Show me where MS said that they have achieved a 99.9% uptime?

        You can't? Exactly. Let's look at what MS did say:
        "Microsoft provides a financially-backed 99.9% uptime guarantee."

        Note that this does NOT say that MS has achieved 99.9% uptime. This does say that they provide a financially backed (key words there) 99.9% uptime guarantee. This is the same as any store offering a lowest price guarantee. Or a satisfaction guarantee. If these companies fail to provide what they have guaranteed, they will compensate you somehow. This is the exact same thing that MS has said.
        toddybottom
        Reply Vote

    • RE: UK authorities investigating Microsoft's 99.9 percent cloud claim

      @LoverockDavidson_

      The issue is not whether Microsoft is striving for 99.9% uptime, it's that they are claiming to achieve 99.9% uptime. A claim which as mentioned in the story requires them to have at most 8.76 hours of downtime in a 365 day year. A number of hours which they have already exceeded for 2011.

      If a car manufacturer claimed their latest and greatest used only 1 litre of gasoline per 100 km, would you be so forgiving when the real world said the vehicle used 4.3 litres per 100 km -- after all, they were trying for 1 litre per 100 km -- or would you join those muttering about false and misleading advertising?
      DNSB
      Reply Vote

      • You are wrong

        @DNSB
        " it's that they are claiming to achieve 99.9% uptime."

        No they aren't. They are providing you a financially backed 99.9% guarantee. If they don't achieve 99.9% uptime, they will financially compensate you. If you can prove that MS did not financially compensate people, you might have a case. Can you do that?
        toddybottom
        Reply Vote

      • wording

        its all about the wording of the statement. They are not saying that it WILL be up that long, they are saying that they will compensate customers who do not have it up for as long as they are claiming.
        Jimster480
        Reply Vote

  • Tell us again ZDNet bloggers why the Cloud..

    .. is the answer to all our computing prayers. Go on, just beat that dead horse one more time ... let us know, in no uncertain terms, how we can't possibly survive without The Cloud. While you're at it, remind us why we need to sign our collective lives away to the external forces behind the Cloud push.<br><br>As per agreed method, i'll happily provide living proof (as my part of the agreement) of a winged creature - of a porcine nature - that can outpace a bald eagle flying at full tilt ... 'round about the same time you guys provide an airtight, fool-proof, business case for the Cloud.<br><br><i>" .. Lies, d@mn lies and video tape. "</i>
    thx-1138_
    Reply Vote

  • RE: UK authorities investigating Microsoft's 99.9 percent cloud claim

    Hey all you cloud is the greatest thing ever people, is it still the answer? And if you think the other company's stuff cant go down the same way then, I have a bridge I would like to sell you. What these pro dum terminal people cant figure out is. If the programs are actually on our computers instead of the cloud, we only loose service to the computer that is messed up, instead of all of them.
    j-mccurdy@...
    Reply Vote

  • Read it & Weep

    Look Here for the exact words:
    http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/office365/plans/small-business/uptime.aspx

    "Financially backed guarantee
    Office 365 is designed to deliver reliability, availability, and performance with a guaranteed 99.9% uptime, financially backed service level agreement (SLA)."

    Nice phraseology but the advert clearly states "... with a guaranteed 99.9% uptime" which equally clearly has not been achieved. The "finacially backed" phrase comes after the "guaranteed 99.9% uptime".
    Anyway to cut to the chase - for Microsoft and thier Cloud customers it is a big FAIL.
    Of course most of us already know that relying *completely* on the cloud is setting your self up to fail :-)
    microbins
    Reply Vote

    • cloud is fail

      The cloud itself is a fail, the concept is a fail. Therefore anything related to the cloud is a fail.
      Jimster480
      Reply Vote

  • RE: UK authorities investigating Microsoft's 99.9 percent cloud claim

    Sugar coat it all you like. Twist the words to how you would like them interpreted, the fact is that Microsoft have made the implication that their service is up and running, fully operational for 99.9% of the time. I don't care how much the Microsoft fan boys try to claim it's some financially backed guarantee the way it reads is that Microsoft's cloud service is up and running 99.9% of the time! It has been found to be a false claim so they should cease to make that claim. Maybe they can claim to be the best cloud service in that particular arena with regard to uptime? I don't know.
    kevanf1
    Reply Vote

  • RE: UK authorities investigating Microsoft's 99.9 percent cloud claim

    Aren't you all square headed, huh? Just because you are dumb and can't understand a clear statement[financially backed guarantee], you cry foul.

    You can't blame anyone for being illiterate.
    yipsalon
    Reply Vote

  • sxqyeab 45 uap

    yeekog,afipzeym41, phhtz.
    cdsfwrryd81-24379044075927798334015164516269
    Reply Vote

  • 99.9% is not realistic

    Its really difficult to maintain that kind of uptime, and I think that the uptime problems are just going to get worse and worse. This is because when you are storing data, you cant have 100 mirrors of all the data that you can just bounce around requests across all the servers. There is simply too much data since its a public service/repository. And as they are building servers and expanding "the cloud" things like this will happen. Its only natural.
    Jimster480
    Reply Vote
CNET Join | Log In | Privacy | Cookies Close