An ongoing global Microsoft outage has disrupted operations across businesses, educational institutions, and numerous public sector services.
Core tools, including email platforms like Outlook and artificial intelligence services such as Copilot, have been severely impaired or rendered completely inaccessible by the widespread technical failure.
While the firm has confirmed that the disruption was not caused by a cyberattack, ongoing engineering efforts to restore affected servers have so far yielded limited relief.
Meanwhile, the Northern Ireland Education Authority has confirmed that the technical breakdown has impacted both its internal operations and the systems used by schools across the region, preventing emails from being sent or received.
In a statement earlier Friday morning the EA said, “Due to a global Microsoft outage, Outlook is currently unavailable to NI schools and the Education Authority.
“Emails cannot currently be sent or received.
“Microsoft is working to resolve the issue, and further updates will be provided throughout the day.”
According to the BBC, more than 430 million people rely on Microsoft’s 365 applications.
While the full scale of the disruption remains unclear, 140,000 users across 74 countries logged Outlook issues on the tracking platform Downdetector on Thursday night.
Microsoft scrambling to fix outage
Essential tools—such as email systems and artificial intelligence features—have been severely impaired or rendered completely unusable by the widespread technical failure.
The firm has stated that the outage was not triggered by a cybersecurity attack, though ongoing efforts to resolve the issue have so far seen limited success.
The technology firm announced in its latest update that it is observing “early signs of stabilization” as it works to expand capacity and bring users back onto its platforms.
In a statement, it noted that “recovery efforts are ongoing across impacted infrastructure.” While initial signs of stability have emerged, overall system health remains inconsistent as user traffic is gradually restored, and full service capacity has yet to return to normal.
To protect delayed messages during the ongoing restoration process, the company also confirmed that it has extended the “email timeout window” to 48 hours.
Read Also: Microsoft Unveils Maia 300 AI Chip to Reduce Data Centre Costs
