Microsoft outage cuts email for Norway's parliament and public sector

A widespread Microsoft outage has left large parts of Norway's public sector, including all members of parliament, without access to email and other digital services since Thursday evening. The disruption is impacting government operations and has sparked criticism over the country's heavy reliance on the US tech giant. The technical problems, affecting services like Outlook, Teams, and SharePoint, originated from global issues at Microsoft and remained unresolved by Friday afternoon. Several government ministries are affected, and the Digitalisation Agency is in contact with Microsoft, which reports it is working on a fix without providing a timeline for restoration. Politicians from multiple parties are calling for greater digital redundancy, with some advocating for Nordic or European cloud alternatives. However, Høyre's Peter Frølich dismissed building a Norwegian parallel system as unrealistic, while Labour's Andreas Bjelland Eriksen emphasized the importance of personal preparedness during the initial phase of such disruptions.