Major Microsoft Outage Affects Hospitals, Police, and Businesses

Microsoft experienced one of its largest service outages, leaving Outlook, Microsoft 365, Teams, Copilot, and OneDrive unavailable to many users for nearly a day. The disruption affected both individuals and organizations that rely on the company’s cloud services for daily operations.

The problems began Thursday. Microsoft attributed them to increased load on its server infrastructure. The company provided regular updates on the recovery, but its initial measures did not quickly restore all services.

On Friday, Microsoft said recovery was progressing in stages across different parts of its Microsoft 365 infrastructure. The company later reported improved service availability and email delivery, but warned that some users could still experience disruptions.

The effects extended beyond email. Reuters reported that OpenAI and Anthropic had problems connecting to Microsoft tools. Indian airlines IndiGo and Akasa Air also experienced disruptions to customer support services that use email, The Guardian reported.

The outage also affected major international companies, according to The Wall Street Journal. Logistics giant Maersk experienced problems with email and notifications, while communication disruptions affected Euronext’s operations.

US electric commercial vehicle manufacturer Workhorse changed its business plans as a result of the outage. Euronews reported that the company postponed the release of its financial results and its related investor conference until Monday.

The consequences could be particularly severe for smaller businesses. Ashwin Pal, a partner at Australian consulting firm RSM, estimated in ABC News that the total damage to Australian businesses could amount to billions of dollars. Smaller companies would be hit harder than large corporations, Pal said, because they often lack alternative systems to keep operating. Some businesses were even forced to return to using fax machines.

Government agencies, healthcare organizations, police, and educational institutions were also affected. In the United Kingdom, some police departments temporarily asked the public to report urgent matters by phone because online forms had stopped working. Some healthcare providers warned patients that emails might not reach their recipients.

In its latest update, Microsoft said service availability and email delivery speeds were gradually improving. Recovery was not yet complete, however, and users in some regions could continue to experience disruptions.

Source: iXBT.games