Microsoft shares came under pressure on Friday after a major global outage disrupted several of its flagship software and productivity services, including Outlook, Teams, and its artificial intelligence (AI) assistant Copilot, leaving businesses, government agencies, and individual users struggling to access essential tools for more than 12 hours.
Microsoft’s products are among the most widely used software among business, government, and educational institutions. The software giant has struggled to restore normal operations since the disruption began on Thursday, with its latest recovery measures failing to deliver a sustained improvement in service availability.
Microsoft shares fell around 2.8% in pre-market trading on Friday, reflecting investor concerns over the prolonged disruption and its potential implications for the company’s enterprise software business.
In its latest update on Friday, Microsoft said the outage was affecting a wide range of Microsoft 365 offerings that interact with its Exchange Online and email services. The company said it was continuing to investigate the issue and working through different approaches to bring affected servers back online.
The disruption has also extended beyond the US, affecting users across several regions, including Asia-Pacific, with outage reports emerging from more than 70 countries and territories.
Microsoft struggles to restore services after fixes fail
Microsoft initially acknowledged problems with users accessing Exchange Online mailboxes through multiple connection methods. Its engineers subsequently identified elevated server loads and infrastructure issues as likely contributors to the connectivity problems.
The company said several servers had unexpectedly become unavailable after failing automated health checks, forcing the remaining infrastructure to handle additional traffic and contributing to connectivity errors.
However, the recovery process has proved more complicated than initially expected. In an update on Friday, Microsoft said the changes it had implemented to improve service availability were not working as expected and that it was identifying alternative measures to increase capacity amid persistent traffic-management imbalances.
The company later reported signs of stabilisation after implementing broader fixes, although a complete and sustained recovery remained its priority. Microsoft also said it was not aware of any malicious activity or cyberattack behind the disruption.
Businesses and government agencies hit; investor concerns emerge
The disruption has had a wider impact on businesses and government operations that rely heavily on Microsoft’s software ecosystem for everyday communication and workflow management.
Government agencies in Australia, Japan, and the US reported disruptions, while several companies faced difficulties with email communications and business operations. In India, airlines, including IndiGo, Akasa Air, and Air India, reported that their email support services had been affected.
The outage also disrupted operations at financial firms. Taiwan-based securities and financial companies reported difficulties with fund management and trade-related communications, with one firm reportedly cancelling a bond repurchase transaction and another resorting to fax to confirm trades.
For investors, the latest outage raises questions about the reliability of Microsoft’s widely used enterprise software ecosystem and the extent to which businesses depend on a single technology provider for critical operations.
The disruption is also not an isolated incident. Microsoft has faced previous disruptions to its Microsoft 365 services this year, while an Azure cloud outage last month also affected its software offerings and businesses across industries.
While the immediate financial impact of the latest disruption remains unclear, repeated service interruptions could encourage enterprise customers to reassess their dependence on Microsoft’s platforms, particularly as the company expands its AI-powered productivity offerings.
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