WHAT HAPPENED: In a flourish of corporate finger-pointing, Microsoft blamed its own technicians for an error which caused a major disruption in the software giant’s Internet connection for nearly 24 hours. The error in question was apparently a botched router configuration. No report was found to indicate the fate of the technicians involved.

Unfortunately for Microsoft, the error came directly on the heels of their launch of a $200 million advertising campaign to bolster their business software’s reputation as compared to companies like Oracle and IBM. The outage affected some of the most popular sites on the Internet at the time, including Microsoft.com and MSN.com.

SOURCE: CNet
COST: $450,000 ($.05 average loss per visitor + cleanup effort + wasted ad campaign)
REPUTATION DAMAGE: Medium
OTHER FACTORS: Bill Gates was on vacation.
TOTAL DAMAGE: 5/10

Next Page…

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6