New Delhi . This technical glitch, which started around 12:38 pm Indian time on Thursday night, affected digital operations in many parts of the world. Initially, users from other regions including the United States complained of problems in services. Gradually its influence spread to other countries. Information about Microsoft services being affected in more than 70 countries came to light. This disruption affected the work of about 43 crore users.
The most impact of this outage was seen on Outlook and Teams. Sending and receiving emails through Outlook were disrupted, while virtual meetings on Teams and communication between offices were affected. Apart from this, problems were also reported in other features related to Copilot and Microsoft 365. Many users faced issues logging in, accessing email, and opening previously used files.
Microsoft's services are relied upon by companies, government departments, educational institutions and other organizations around the world. In such a situation, the impact of technical glitches was not limited to individual users only. Regular work of many companies came to a halt, communication between government offices was affected and some institutions had to resort to alternative arrangements.
The impact of this disruption was seen in India also. Airlines IndiGo and Akasa Air reported problems in email support services. Due to this, some emails and customer support related messages sent by passengers were affected. The companies asked passengers to be alert to possible delays in communications.
On the other hand, health services and government institutions also faced problems in many countries. Some work related to Britain's National Health Service was affected. Hospitals and local health units had to resort to alternative IT systems and paper records. Some London Police online services were also affected, although the emergency call response system was not affected.
Due to this technical problem, the financial activities of some companies were also affected. Some institutions had to postpone the announcement of their financial results. Transactions at some financial companies in Taiwan were affected. One company had to cancel a transaction involving a bond buyback, while another used fax to confirm trades.
Microsoft said in its initial investigation that the problem was caused by a technical glitch related to an earlier upgrade to increase network capacity. This problem became more apparent after a recent network change and put additional pressure on the available servers. The company clarified that there was no role of cyber attack or artificial intelligence agent behind this incident.
The company deeply regrets the inconvenience caused to customers and partners. He said that instead of starting the services all at once, the services were restored in a phased manner, so that the stability of the system could be checked at every level. Microsoft reported that the original technical issue has been fixed and most services have been significantly improved.
However, even after the system was reactivated, not all problems immediately resolved. Work continued to clear pending email queues and balance network traffic. Some users may experience delays in receiving emails and intermittent login issues. The company expressed its inability to give a specific timeline for full recovery and continued work on restoring services in the remaining areas.
The full assessment of the economic loss caused by this disruption is not yet clear. However, according to experts, such incidents can lead to business interruption, loss of productivity and financial losses along with the possibility of insurance claims. Some small businesses have also been reported to suffer losses of up to thousands of dollars a day.
This incident has once again highlighted the increasing reliance on cloud services and digital communications in global business. When millions of people and organizations depend on the same technical system, the impact of a single major server or network failure can reach many countries. Microsoft has said it will release a report after completing a detailed review of the technical incident.