Some Gmail users had trouble starting the work week on Monday.

Google’s e-mail service was inaccessible for many users on Monday morning, for both personal and business accounts. Google said it was a global service disruption. Chrome, Google’s browser, was reported to be crashing frequently in some instances.

Google reported on its site that the problem had been resolved by afternoon. But the cutoff highlights the downside of relying on information stored only in the cloud of the Internet, particularly for businesses that pay to use Google Apps, including Gmail, Docs for word processing and Drive for file storage.

Last week, Google said it would begin charging small businesses, not just big ones, to use Google Apps in the workplace. (On Thursday, the same day it made that announcement, Gmail also crashed.) Businesses pay $50 an employee each year for the services. Google is also betting on cloud-based applications with its Chrome operating system.

But the ease of reaching e-mail and other services from any Internet-connected device quickly becomes a burden when there is a service problem, as Gmail users discovered on Monday.

Minutes after Gmail went down, Twitter lit up with posts from people who were frustrated by the disruption.

NY Times