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A SaaS Comparison: Apple, Google & 37signals

By Joel • 14 Aug 2008

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SaaS: Software as a Service (such as web applications and hosted software, usually via paid subscription)

MobileMe Google Apps Basecamp

I thought I’d do a comparison of how a few of the web’s best-known companies have dealt with recent glitches that caused interruption in their service:

Apple iTunes Activation Server Status

Time Explanation	Actual Status
9:30AM EST JULY 11, 2008 …nothing.	Intermittent
10:30AM EST JULY 11, 2008 …nothing.	Offline
11:30AM EST JULY 11, 2008 …nothing.	Offline
12:30PM EST JULY 11, 2008 …nothing.	Offline
1:30PM EST JULY 11, 2008 …nothing.	Offline
2:30PM EST JULY 11, 2008 …nothing.	Intermittent
3:30PM EST JULY 11, 2008 …nothing.	Online

GoogleApps & Gmail System Status

(Though Google provides status for their server issues, it’s difficult to find, and in somewhat of a convoluted format. Link here )

12:00PM EST JULY 16, 2008
We’re aware of users reporting the 502 error on login. Our engineers are investigating and we will keep you updated on this thread. We appreciate your patience, and we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

2:45PM EST JULY 16, 2008
Update: we know that a subset of users are continuing to experience 502 errors on login. Our ngineers have identified the source of the problem and are currently working on a fix. We understand how painful this can be for affected users and we appreciate your patience while we work to get you back up and running.

5:38PM EST JULY 16, 2008
Update: we know that this continues to be a problem for a subset of users. Our engineers are continuing their diligent work to get you access to your account.

9:01PM EST JULY 16, 2008
Update: our engineers have made some good progress and we expect to have users back in their accounts shortly.

11:27PM EST JULY 16, 2008
Users who were temporarily affected by this problem should now be able to access their account. Thanks for your patience while we worked to resolve this problem.

37signals System Status

(System status is always available at http://status.37signals.com )

7:40PM CST JULY 9, 2008
Our data center appears to be having cooling issues. Some servers have been taken offline to protect the hardware (and data). Cooling is being brought back up and servers are coming back online.

8:05PM CST JULY 9, 2008
The folks at Rackspace (the people who host our servers) continue to work on the cooling issue. It turns out it affects large portions of their Texas data center, so it’s a deeper issue than initially thought. We just got off a conference call with them for this update. They are hard at work on the problem. We apologize for the downtime.

8:50PM CST JULY 9, 2008
Servers are returning to service slowly, but progress is being made as the temperature of the critical database servers comes back down to normal.

9:15PM CST JULY 9, 2008
All sites and apps back except for Highrise. That’s coming back online next.

9:25PM CST JULY 9, 2008
All sites and apps have been fully restored. Thanks for your patience and understanding during this hardware issue.

10:48AM CST JULY 10, 2008
We are working to restore service and expect the applications to be available momentarily.

11:01AM CST JULY 10, 2008
We apologize for the delay, it is taking a little longer than expected to restore service for these applications. We expect them to be available very soon.

11:10AM CST JULY 10, 2008
While performing some needed maintenance on database servers relating to last night’s outage we encountered some unexpected difficulties. At this point, all service should be restored. We apologize again for the inconvenience and we appreciate your patience and understanding.

Wrapping It Up

Aside from the issues mentioned above, Apple continues to have issues with their newly-launched MobileMe service. To their credit, they have apologized to their customers, awarded them with a free month of service, and added a status page to the MobileMe section of their website.

Which one looks like they’ve done the best job of keeping their customers in-the-know to you?

UPDATE: Apple has come forward with further apologies, hoping to make things right with their customers by giving them another extension on their MobileMe subscription.

UPDATE 2: Apple has now announced they are getting rid of their status page in the MobileMe section of their site, and replacing it with a status area in the upper right hand corner of their MobileMe support section, along with a MobileMe News page with the ability to chat with a live representative. (Nicely upping the ante for SaaS support!)