Microsoft Teams Faces Service Outage, Disrupting Business Operations

Microsoft Teams, the popular workspace chat and videoconferencing service, experienced a service outage on Friday, disrupting business operations for users worldwide.

The outage, which began around 11 a.m. Eastern time, caused access issues and limited features for numerous users. Reports of technical problems rapidly escalated, with more than 14,500 service incidents reported by early afternoon, according to outage tracking website Downdetector.com.

While it is currently unclear how many users were affected, the outage had a significant impact on the service. Microsoft acknowledged the issue on its official Microsoft 365 Status Twitter account, stating that they had identified a networking issue impacting a portion of the Teams Service.

Microsoft immediately took steps to resolve the issue, initiating a failover process in the EMEA region (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa). By diverting affected processes to a backup system, some improvement in service telemetry was observed.

The failover process in the North and South America regions is still ongoing, and Microsoft continues to monitor the situation closely.

While users on Downdetector reported a range of issues, including delayed messages and repeated notifications, it is uncertain when a complete resolution will be in effect.

Microsoft Teams, with more than 320 million monthly active users worldwide, has become a critical tool for businesses and organizations globally. As a result, this service outage has undoubtedly disrupted work and communication for countless individuals.

With the growing reliance on digital collaboration platforms like Microsoft Teams, service providers must strive to prevent such outages and ensure minimal disruptions for users.

For more updates on this ongoing issue, follow CBS MoneyWatch and stay informed about the latest on Microsoft Teams and other important tech developments.