Skype experiences service outage
Internet calling service Skype has experienced a service outage, though it was not immediately clear how many of its millions of users were affected.
The company said that it was fixing the problem and it expected service would return within several hours.
Skype tweeted on its Twitter feed that some users might have trouble signing in to its service and that it was looking into the cause.
Two hours later, Skype said its engineers and site operations team were working to fix a problem, and about half an hour later the company linked to a blog post about the outage and thanked users for "continued patience while we return things to normal".
On Skype's blog, head blogger Peter Parkes said that the problem was due to many of what Skype calls "supernodes" going offline because of a problem affecting some versions of Skype's software.
Skype's operations depend on the connections between users' computers and telephones.
"Supernodes" are computers that the company said are like phone directories: when Skype cannot quickly find people that a user is trying to contact, it will look for one of these computers to find them.
"As Skype relies on being able to maintain contact with supernodes, it may appear offline for some of you," Mr Parkes said.
Mr Parkes said Skype is building "mega-supernodes" to fix the problem, but that it could take a few hours before service returns and even longer before some features - such as group video calling - start working again.
Skype's software offers a range of free services, including the ability to make voice or video calls and send instant messages to other Skype users. Users pay for services such as making calls from a PC to a landline or mobile phone.
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Skype, an Internet phone service, has apologised after millions of people around the globe found the program had gone down. The outage, which occurred on Wednesday, reportedly affected the United States, Europe and Japan, and lasted several hours. The company wrote on Twitter on Thursday morning that, more than twelve hours after the outage, some users were still experiencing problems.

Skype logo. 
The chief executive of Skype, , said his company took the technical issues "really seriously," and apologised to users. "Right now it looks like clients are coming on and offline and sometimes they are crashing in the middle of calls. We are deep in the middle of investigating the cause of the problem and have teams working hard to remedy the situation," he said.

In a blog post, Skype stated that, "we’re sincerely sorry for this disruption - like you, all of us at Skype rely on Skype every day. We understand just how important Skype is to your friendships, family, and work, and so are particularly aware of the impact of rare problems like this." 

Industry expert  said the outage would be of concern for Skype. "Skype is one of the key applications of the modern web," he said. "It is already a hit with consumers, and over the past few years it has become part of the economic fabric for start-ups and small businesses around the world. I am not sure we can comprehend the productivity cost of this outage. The outage comes at a time when Skype is starting to ask larger corporations for their business." Malik added: "If I am a big business, I would be extremely cautious about adopting Skype for business, especially in light of this current outage."

Bates said he did not know what had caused the outage, but, speaking to the BBC, he said "all avenues" would be investigated. Reports suggest the program did not work on any system, including computers and mobile devices. "Some of you may have problems signing in to Skype – we’re investigating, and we’re sorry for the disruption to your conversations," the company wrote on Twitter when the outage began. 20 million people use the service every day.


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