By Thousands of users, businesses and government agencies across the world have experienced disruptions to Microsoft’s services following a major technical outage that began on Thursday, November 12.
The outage affected Microsoft 365, Outlook, Microsoft Teams and other applications, leaving users unable to access their email accounts, send or receive messages and connect to some business services.
According to outage-tracking website Downdetector, reports of problems with Outlook peaked at nearly 130,000 on Thursday afternoon in the United States.
Microsoft attributed the disruption to infrastructure problems involving several unexpectedly unavailable servers, which placed additional pressure on the remaining systems and caused connectivity failures across multiple regions.
The company said it was working to restore affected servers and had implemented measures to stabilise its infrastructure. However, the disruption extended into Friday, with Microsoft reporting early signs of recovery while warning that some services could continue experiencing intermittent problems.
The incident also affected Microsoft connectors used by artificial intelligence platforms ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, and Claude, developed by Anthropic.
Meanwhile, users also reported problems accessing services associated with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google on Downdetector. However, Amazon clarified that its cloud services were operating normally, describing reports linking AWS to the disruption as inaccurate.
The outage has once again drawn attention to the dependence of businesses and organisations on major technology providers for communication, cloud storage and daily operations.
Microsoft said it was continuing to monitor its systems and implement recovery measures to restore normal service.
About Microsoft Corporation
Microsoft Corporation is a global technology company that develops and supports software, services, devices and digital solutions. Its operations are organised into three main business segments: Productivity and Business Processes, Intelligent Cloud, and More Personal Computing.
The Productivity and Business Processes segment includes Microsoft 365, LinkedIn and Dynamics products and cloud services. Intelligent Cloud covers server products and cloud services, including Azure, GitHub and other cloud and artificial intelligence services. More Personal Computing comprises Windows, Devices, Xbox and Search advertising.
Source: CNBC, Reuters and Associated Press.
