LIVE – Global outage of Microsoft and Outlook: the American giant notes “encouraging progress” in Europe

In its latest update, at 1 p.m. Paris time, Microsoft says it is seeing “encouraging progress in recovery in Europe, with an improvement in service availability and email delivery performance on a growing portion of the affected Microsoft 365 infrastructure.”

“Japan remains relatively more stable, while the situation is also improving in North America; However, some users may still experience intermittent issues as recovery operations continue,” the American giant adds on its status page.

The public health services (NHS) in England activated their emergency systems on Friday in the face of the global outage which affects Microsoft, notably resorting to “other computer systems” or “paper files” to maintain essential care and appointments, they indicated on Friday.

Local services are implementing “long-planned measures to manage IT failures,” said an NHS spokesperson in a press release sent to AFP, acknowledging disruptions in the work of staff.

Patients should continue to call 999 in an emergency and attend their appointments unless otherwise instructed, it added. For other needs, they are invited to use the 111 medical advice service, its online version or their local pharmacy.

Health services disrupted, company results published delayed, school more difficult to reach... The global outage affecting several Microsoft software programs, including Outlook, has significant repercussions on the daily lives of their users this Friday.

In New Zealand, the government warned that messaging at embassies and consulates was disrupted, and the immigration services announced the suspension of new visa applications, being unable to process those already submitted. In Australia, media are reporting testimonies of panicked students no longer having access to their online courses, while they are in the middle of revising for their end-of-year exams. The Minister of the Economy of Japan, Ryosei Akazawa, affirmed that this outage would have “a significant impact” due to the high number of people using affected Microsoft software, in an interview with the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. The Supreme Court of the Philippines reported difficulties in receiving and sending emails.

In the United Kingdom, several local entities of the NHS (the British public health service) have, for their part, published messages on X reporting difficulties with Microsoft tools. Rachel Harrison, national secretary for public services at the British union GMB, told AFP that the outage had “serious repercussions” on ambulance services and NHS facilities. In France, in Paris, a school asked parents to prioritize telephone calls if necessary. The administrations of several large cities in the United States, such as Miami Beach, Austin, Burbank and Pasadena, have warned that they no longer have access to their emails.

The smooth functioning of businesses was also hampered by these disruptions. In India, for example, airlines have warned that their customers' requests may not reach them, and a handful of flights have had to be canceled. The American electric vehicle manufacturer Workhorse Group postponed the publication of its third quarter results and the Swiss company Richemont, owner of the jeweler Cartier, postponed the publication of its results by around forty minutes. The stock market operator Euronext invited companies listed on its markets to contact it if necessary by telephone rather than by email, while ensuring that its operations took place without problem.

Sensitive since Thursday evening, November 12, the computer failure affects several tools of the American giant Microsoft. This concerns in particular the Microsoft 365 Cloud environment, popular with businesses, Outlook messaging, which is part of it, or the Teams messaging application, again widely deployed in firms.

This summer, Microsoft reported that its Microsoft 365 services had 450 million users worldwide. Consequences are therefore felt in many countries. In New Zealand, the government warned that messaging at embassies and consulates was disrupted, and the immigration services announced the suspension of new visa applications, being unable to process those already submitted. Same problem in Japan, where the government admitted that its information systems were affected.