About those Windows Live Messenger outages...

In case you were one of the many Windows Live Messenger users affected by the recent outages of Microsoft's consumer IM service earlier this week, here's an update on what happened.

On Thursday September 11, I -- like many of my IM contacts around the world -- couldn't sign into Live Messenger for a number of hours. Courtesy of a Microsoft spokeswoman, this is Microsoft's statement on the disruption:

“Yesterday (September 10) and earlier today (September 11), we experienced two outages affecting a small portion of Windows Live Messenger customers. Caused by hardware problems, both outages were quickly addressed and have been fixed. The stability of the service is one of our top priorities at Microsoft and we are committed to providing our customers with the best service possible. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience and disruption any outage may have caused.”

The outages "lasted approximately two hours each, and have since been resolved," the spokeswoman added. Hmmm. I guess two hours without IM seems a lot longer when you really need to chat with your work colleagues....

Microsoft is in the midst of privately testing the next version of Windows Live Messenger (version 9.0). A new version of the WLM 9 beta, which is part of the broader family of Windows Live Wave 3 wares, is expected any day now.