Microsoft announced on Saturday that it had fully restored its services, including Teams, Outlook, and other products, following a global outage that lasted over 24 hours. The disruption, which began on Thursday, affected millions of users worldwide, crippling essential functions like email, calendar management, and virtual meetings. Microsoft attributed the issue to server problems and ruled out any malicious activity or involvement of its Copilot AI assistant.
The outage had significant impacts across various sectors, including government agencies in Australia, Japan, and the United States, trading firms, and airlines. Organizations hosting Microsoft services on their own servers were less affected. The incident marked one of the longest outages in Microsoft's history and the second disruption this year, raising concerns about the global reliance on a few Big Tech companies for essential software and cloud infrastructure.
Downdetector logged over 7.4 million reports worldwide, with peaks reaching nearly 20,000 a minute. Analysts noted that the outage highlighted the dependence on Microsoft's workplace software, with disruptions spiking as employees started their workdays in Asia and Europe. Microsoft shares closed flat at $523.88 on Friday, with the stock gaining roughly eight percent so far this year.
Analysts estimated global insured losses from the outage at between $300 million and $500 million, significantly lower than the $400 million to $1.5 billion toll from the 2024 CrowdStrike outage. Some analysts questioned whether such incidents could push customers to rivals, given the steep switching costs of replacing deeply embedded tools. However, the overall impact on insurers was expected to be limited.