The outage in Microsoft services, which began on Thursday (12) and continued through Friday (13), disrupted the routine of companies and workers who depend on Outlook to exchange information and serve customers. With the gradual resumption of tools, users report an accumulation of messages, delays in tasks and difficulties in maintaining communication.
The impact was huge for tg.mob and X.one, executive transport companies that cater to corporate events. According to Leandro Pimenta, CEO of the two companies, the operation depends on Microsoft services to receive quote requests and organize travel.
The company receives approximately 100 quote requests per day. During the outage, however, only ten arrived via WhatsApp, one of the alternatives used to try to maintain service. “We had a huge impact,” says Pimenta.
The companies transport passengers in cars, vans, minibuses and buses to conventions, meetings and events, mainly in the pharmaceutical sector. Email communication is used from receiving orders to sending the logistics of each operation, with information about flights, schedules, vehicles and drivers.
With the interruption of Outlook, the company had to turn to WhatsApp and create alternative email accounts to try to overcome the problem. The strategy, however, had limited scope because many of its own customers also use Microsoft's services.
"Now that it's back, everything is accumulated for us to put together quotations, respond, do everything. The volume is surreal", says Pimenta.
The executive states that the company intends to reduce dependence on email. After the outage, it held a meeting to discuss the creation of a customer area in its own system, in which contractors will be able to complete and send requests directly, without relying on Outlook. The idea is also to expand the use of alternative communication channels.
Economist Ana Julia Costa, 23, who works at a large bank, says that the instability compromised the sending of reports and information to customers and delayed activities that depended on email communication, in addition to leaving her email inbox full this Friday.
Costa would like to reduce dependence on the tool, but believes that the change is difficult because the service is the standard of the institution where he works and is integrated with other corporate systems. "This interdependence ends up making many professionals dependent on its operation", he states.
Intern Murilo Bezerra, 19, also had his activities affected. The failure interrupted negotiations to carry out an interview, which could have taken place this Friday, and delayed the production of the newsletter for a magazine where he works.
According to him, the company he works for sent a statement via Outlook itself informing about the gradual resumption of the service. Despite the episode, the company intends to continue using Microsoft 365, although it already uses other tools, such as WhatsApp, Google Meet and Gmail for communication.
Microsoft stated this Friday that services were approaching normal operating levels, with a significant reduction in the email queue. The company, however, warned that some users could still experience intermittent crashes and delays in message delivery as the recovery continued.
The outage began on Thursday afternoon and affected services such as Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, Copilot, Planner and Power BI. The company attributed the problem to a high load on its infrastructure and stated that there was no evidence that the failure had been caused by malicious or cyber activities.
