On Thursday evening, a widespread outage crippled Microsoft’s most widely used workplace services, including Outlook, Teams, and Copilot, affecting users in 74 countries. The disruption began around 16:00 GMT and persisted into the following day, leaving millions of people unable to access email, video conferencing, and other essential tools.
Microsoft’s service‑health team reported that the outage was caused by a combination of unexpected server unavailability and elevated load across multiple regions. The company clarified that the spike in load was not due to increased traffic, but rather a technical fault that led to connectivity errors. Despite efforts to reboot infrastructure and apply patches, many servers failed to recover, prolonging the service interruption.
By Friday morning, the outage had spread to critical government and public‑sector systems. In Singapore and Japan, government agencies experienced communication breakdowns, while the Supreme Court of the Philippines reported disruptions. Australian federal police and the country’s spy agency were also affected. The impact on these institutions highlights the broader societal reliance on cloud‑based services.
According to Downdetector, at least 43,000 reports of Outlook problems were logged by 07:00 GMT on Friday, involving users in 72 countries. The real number of affected users is likely far higher, as the platform only captures those who actively report issues. Microsoft has not released an official figure of the total users impacted.
Outlook users reported being unable to open mailboxes via the web, desktop app, or mobile devices. Emails that did reach recipients often arrived late, causing significant inconvenience for businesses and individuals alike. Teams and Copilot services also suffered partial outages, further hampering remote collaboration.
Technology analyst Rupert Goodwins described the incident as “embarrassing for Microsoft” and noted the scale of the disruption. Meanwhile, AI researcher Walter Pasquarelli emphasized that the event represents a “communication risk” for the global community, underscoring the need for robust contingency plans.
Microsoft’s response has focused on monitoring server activity, reviewing performance, and ensuring that patches are correctly applied after infrastructure reboots. The company remains committed to restoring full functionality as quickly as possible, though a definitive timeline has not yet been announced.
Source: Al Jazeera
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Editorial note: This is an original news report prepared from the attributed source material with AI assistance. It is not a reproduction or translation of the original article.
