Microsoft outage: ‘Weekend started early’ for some

For some office workers, the weekend could not have come sooner.

A global Microsoft outage on Friday, 13 November, left thousands of users unable to access their emails, with some hoping the technical glitch would spare them from their morning meetings.

The outage affected several Microsoft services, including Outlook, Teams and Copilot.

Friday the 13th turned out to be a lucky day for some employees.

“Teams next? please,” wrote X user @ExcelHumor.

Other users shared memes about employees celebrating the prospect of a Friday without emails or meetings.

On LinkedIn, Australian user Tom Freer joked that colleagues would now have to speak to one another.

SOUTH AFRICANS JOIN IN ON THE FUN

South Africans also saw the funny side of the outage, with some hoping Microsoft would take its time restoring services.

A Johannesburg-based user on the MyBroadband forum expressed disappointment that Microsoft services were still working, having hoped to escape a morning meeting.

“Can stay like this the whole day,” wrote another user, Moosedrool.

“Someone or something was listening. Happy Friday,” added RaptorSA.

Meanwhile, Cape Town user dalkill reported that Copilot had started answering in French.

SOUTH AFRICAN USERS HIT

South African technology analyst Arthur Goldstuck told East Coast Radio that he had tried accessing Outlook on several devices without success.

“The people I’ve spoken to aren’t able to access it anywhere,” he said.

The global outage also prompted the University of Cape Town (UCT) to advise staff and students against changing their passwords in an attempt to regain access to Microsoft services.

MICROSOFT WORKS TO RESTORE SERVICES

Microsoft identified increased pressure on its server infrastructure as the cause of the disruption.

The technology giant said it had no indication that malicious activity was behind the outage.

Users can follow updates on the Microsoft 365 Status account on X.