A global Microsoft outage has disrupted access to Outlook, Teams and other Microsoft 365 services, leaving businesses, universities and government institutions in South Africa and elsewhere struggling to access essential workplace tools.
The disruption, which began on Thursday evening, has affected users attempting to access their emails, schedule meetings and retrieve documents stored on Microsoft's cloud-based platforms.
Microsoft's affected services include Outlook, Exchange Online, Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint and its artificial intelligence assistant, Copilot. Some users have reported difficulties sending and receiving emails, while others have been unable to load their inboxes or access files.
The University of Cape Town's Information and Communication Technology Services confirmed on Friday that Microsoft had advised users could experience difficulties connecting to multiple Microsoft 365 services. The university said the global disruption had been affecting services since late Thursday evening and that Microsoft was still working to stabilise its systems.
The City of Cape Town also issued an alert confirming that the outage was affecting its Microsoft 365 environment, including email services, Teams and OneDrive. The municipality said its information technology teams were monitoring Microsoft's updates but that there was no confirmed timeline for the full restoration of services.
Microsoft has attributed the disruption to problems with its infrastructure, including elevated server loads and unexpected server unavailability. The company has been working to restore affected infrastructure and redirect traffic through alternative routes.
However, its recovery efforts have encountered difficulties, with some servers becoming unresponsive when traffic is redirected to them.
The scale of the disruption has been significant. Downdetector recorded nearly 130 000 reports of problems at the height of the outage, with users across different regions reporting difficulties accessing Microsoft's products.
Microsoft has said it has no indication that the disruption was caused by a cyberattack. It has also reported progress in restoring some affected servers, although service stability remains a concern.
The incident has once again highlighted organisations' dependence on cloud-based platforms for everyday communication and operations, and the potential consequences when widely used digital infrastructure becomes unavailable.
Microsoft has not provided a confirmed timeline for the complete restoration of all affected services.