Microsoft, a global leader in technology, has issued an apology following hundreds of reports of problems with its products, which include the popular game Minecraft and the email service Outlook.
Website tracking service Downdetector revealed that hundreds of people had reported issues on Tuesday afternoon.
The event occurs less than two weeks after a huge worldwide IT outage caused by a faulty software update by the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike rendered over eight million machines running Microsoft systems inoperable, affecting travel and healthcare.
Microsoft reported that a patch for the issue “shows improvement” and that it will continue to monitor the situation “to ensure full recovery”.
Prior to this, the IT behemoth declared that it was “investigating reports of issues connecting to Microsoft services globally.”
The statement on X, the previous Twitter platform, read, “We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.”
“Our experts are currently investigating the situation in order to resolve it as soon as feasible.”
Hours before Microsoft is scheduled to release its most recent financial results at 2230 BST, it has happened.
The IT behemoth said in an advisory posted on its service status page on Tuesday that it was investigating a “network infrastructure” problem that was affecting users’ ability to access Microsoft Azure, the cloud computing platform that powers many of its services.
It also mentioned Entra and Intune, two of its cloud platforms, as being affected.
Professor Alan Woodward, an authority on computer security, stated, “It seems a little surreal that we’re having another major outage of online services from Microsoft.”
“Network infrastructure seems to be the culprit, but you would have thought that there wouldn’t be a single point of failure with such crucial cloud-based systems.”Microsoft’s network architecture should be impenetrable, right?
It looks like other services that depend on Microsoft’s platforms have also been hit by the outage, Cambridge Water being one of them.
“Due to worldwide issues with Microsoft Azure, a problem with our website is affecting several services including MyAccount and PayNow,” it said in a post on X.
Microsoft apologises after thousands report new outage
