Microsoft outage persists as Outlook and Teams remain unstable worldwide

Microsoft's Outlook and Teams services remain unstable Friday after the company struggled to fix server issues, disrupting businesses and government agencies worldwide that rely on the platforms. Microsoft said efforts to improve serviceability were not progressing as expected, citing sustained traffic management imbalances. Downdetector logged over 25,000 US Outlook reports at 9:30pm Eastern Thursday, down from a peak of 130,000, with outages also hitting India, Australia, and Japan. Australian officials said Microsoft believes the issue stems from a faulty update, not a cyberattack, similar to the 2024 CrowdStrike incident. The outage affected Microsoft 365 features tied to Exchange Online, while other functions remained operational. Australia's spy agency and federal police were impacted, as was the US House of Representatives. OpenAI and Anthropic reported issues with Microsoft connectors, and electric truck maker Workhorse Group rescheduled its earnings report to November 16 due to the disruption.