Microsoft is experiencing a worldwide technical disruption affecting its Office applications and cloud services.

Microsoft Corp. is currently investigating outages impacting several of its Office applications and cloud services on a global scale. This disruption has significantly affected users attempting to access critical Microsoft 365 services, with key applications such as Outlook, Word, and Excel experiencing connectivity problems.

In a statement on their Azure cloud services monitoring site, Microsoft acknowledged the extensive connectivity issues affecting users worldwide, noting on their X page:

“We’re currently investigating access issues and degraded performance with multiple Microsoft 365 services and features.”

The outages have disrupted various Microsoft 365 services, including essential applications like Outlook, Word, and Excel. Users have reported either being unable to access these apps or encountering severe performance and connection issues.

As of the time of this report, there are no indications of this affecting Nigerian users, with Microsoft 365 services reportedly functioning normally in the country.

Key Points to Note:

1. This incident follows a series of recent technical difficulties for Microsoft. Earlier this month, glitches emerged in the US, attributed to failures in Microsoft services, including Azure and Microsoft 365.
2. Businesses globally have experienced significant disruptions due to these technical issues. Critical sectors such as airlines and banks, along with many other enterprises dependent on Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure, have faced operational challenges, particularly in the US and Asia.
3. Employees worldwide have struggled with non-functional Windows systems, with many sharing images of blue screens and error messages on social media.

In Asia, Japanese users began encountering issues with Microsoft 365 in the afternoon. Airlines at airports in Mumbai, Narita, Singapore, and Hong Kong have resorted to manual passenger check-ins. Notable companies like McDonald’s Corp., United Airlines Holdings Inc., and the LSE Group have reported disruptions affecting their customer service communications. KLM has suspended most flights due to the widespread computer outage, underscoring the broad impact across various industries.

These latest failures follow Microsoft’s recent resolution of an Azure cloud services outage. The company’s status pages previously indicated that both Azure and Microsoft 365 experienced problems for several hours. There are suggestions that some of these issues may be related to a problematic software update by CrowdStrike Holdings Inc., with companies like Australia’s AGL Energy Ltd. acknowledging system issues linked to the CrowdStrike outage.