Microsoft services face major global outrage 

If you spend a significant amount of time on the internet, especially on social media sites such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, you must be familiar with the occasional outrages that they experience from time to time. Last year alone, there were at least a dozen outrages, both in India and worldwide.  

Now, only on the second day of the new year, there has been a massive tech outrage across the globe as various Microsoft services were down for a few hours. These included Microsoft OneDrive, Azure, Skype, Teams and Microsoft 365.  

Although no information was released about the cause of the services, they were restored within a couple of hours and have been working without any issues ever since.  

Sources cite that the news spread first in Twitter followed by Down Detector and is now being deemed as the first major tech outrage of 2023.  

Experts also predict that there could have been a number of reasons behind the outrages. For instance, there could have a fault (or multiple of them) in a deployment code or even physical damage to one or more servers.  

The issues were first noticed in Microsoft OneDrive where users were unable to upload or access files stored there, even after several attempts and stable internet connection. While Microsoft put down one of the oldest browsers, aka Internet Explorer last June, as such they hadn’t faced any outrages in 2022. However, considering it offers so many services at once, such an outrage was imminent.  

For those unaware, Microsoft Corporation is a US-based multinational technological conglomerate that produces computer software, consumer electronics (Xbox video game consoles), personal computers and more such services and products. The tech giant is best known for its series of operating systems such as the Windows, the Microsoft office suite and several web browsers such as Edge and Microsoft 365. 

Skype on the other hand is an instant messaging and video chatting computer programme, now also available in app. Teams too offers same kind of services and is primarily used for workspace chat and videoconferencing, file storage, and application integration.  

Azure in contrast offers cloud services and stores bulk of important data, much like OneDrive.