Seattle, Mar 13: Microsoft Corp. said a "significant portion" of people who use the company's Hotmail e-mail system and other Internet-based products had trouble accessing the services for several hours. The company said it was an internal problem and not an attack on its system and that it had the service restored last night. The problem began on Friday morning.

In addition to Hotmail, Microsoft said people were having difficulties accessing products such as MSN Messenger. Bureau Report