Tim Said What?

Software company Microsoft issued a statement saying that the technical problem that led to the Hotmail blackout has not been fixed, despite previous statements saying otherwise.

The latest announcement was made in the wake of complaints saying that the webmail service, along with other Microsoft online services, were still blocked in Europe and North America. Customers reported that their accounts were still inaccessible, and have remained so since the problem began Tuesday.

“We are aware that some customers may be experiencing difficulty accessing their Windows Live accounts,” said a Microsoft spokesperson. “We’re actively investigating the cause and are working to take the appropriate steps to remedy the situation as rapidly as possible.”

The problem has gone on for two straight days, and customers have expressed anger over the seeming lack of technical response, among other things.

“I think I’m most irritated about the fact that Microsoft is downplaying the extent of the problem,” read a comment received by Times Online. “The outage is not resolved, and is now going into its second day.”

Other Hotmail subscribers have reported switching to rival mail accounts, such as Yahoo! or Gmail.

“Not being able to access my account yesterday was the final straw,” said a user from Dubai. “I’ve found Hotmail increasingly unreliable and I get lots of spam too.”

A Mashable article noted the persistence of the problem, taking a kinder, softer tone to Microsoft.

“We saw how harmful inaccessibility was for Skype, so hopefully Microsoft can get this issue resolved as quickly as possible,” read the article written by Kristen Nicole. “And perhaps handle the current situation a little better?”

The problem, which started Tuesday, left tens of millions of Hotmail users without their webmail service. The primary response for it was generally angry, with people saying it was something their company could not go through again.

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