Microsoft outage disrupts outlook, teams and Copilot worldwide
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Microsoft’s Outlook, Teams and Copilot services remained disrupted on Friday as one of the company’s worst outages lasted more than 12 hours, affecting businesses and government agencies worldwide.
Microsoft blamed server problems for the disruption and said it was not aware of any malicious activity or cyberattack behind the incident. In its latest update on Friday, the company said it was seeing positive signs of stabilization after implementing fixes more broadly to restore services.
The outage affected government agencies in Australia, Japan and the United States. It also disrupted trading firms, delayed corporate earnings announcements and forced airlines to warn customers about communication problems.
In Europe, stock exchange operator Euronext reported email communication issues among its listing teams. British insurer Aviva began preparing backup arrangements for its earnings calls, while Danish shipping company Maersk warned customers about delays in emails and service updates.
US-based artificial intelligence companies OpenAI and Anthropic also reported problems with Microsoft connectors. Indian airlines IndiGo, Akasa Air and Air India said their email support services were affected.
The disruption also affected fund management operations at Taiwanese securities firms, life insurers and investment trust companies. One company canceled a bond repurchase transaction, while another resorted to fax to confirm trades, according to sources familiar with the situation.
In the United States, electric truck manufacturer Workhorse Group rescheduled its earnings announcement to November 16. Swiss luxury goods group Richemont also briefly delayed its first-half results announcement on Friday.
This is the second disruption to Microsoft’s 365 services this year. The company also experienced outages in January and October last year.
Market analyst Josh Gilbert of trading platform eToro said investors might tolerate the latest disruption for now, as few customers could quickly leave Microsoft’s ecosystem. However, repeated outages could raise concerns about the reliability of its services and encourage businesses to reconsider their dependence on a single provider.
Microsoft said services relying on Exchange Online, its cloud-based email and messaging platform, were affected, while other Microsoft 365 features remained functional.
Source: Reuters (Adapted)
