'Microsoft-sponsored holiday': Singapore workers scramble to cope with global outage

Detailed summary

Workers turn to alternative communication channels or put tasks on hold, while students face disruptions to exam preparations as a global Microsoft outage stretches beyond 12…

Workers turn to alternative communication channels or put tasks on hold, while students face disruptions to exam preparations as a global Microsoft outage stretches beyond 12 hours.

SINGAPORE: A global Microsoft outage disrupted workplaces, educational institutions and government agencies across Singapore on Friday (Nov 13), leaving users unable to access Outlook and other applications.

Some workers turned to messaging apps and other workarounds to stay connected, while others postponed tasks and meetings or braced for a backlog of work once services were restored.

The disruption also affected government systems and email services at major banks, although essential services and healthcare operations remained unaffected.

Microsoft attributed the outage to some of its servers unexpectedly becoming unavailable, shifting the load to those still operating.

The tech giant said that recovery efforts are ongoing, and that it is "seeing early signs of stabilisation".

However, it is still searching for a solution to restore its services globally.

For workers across Singapore, the outage disrupted daily routines, with some discovering the problem before the workday had even begun.

Rahmat, a 36-year-old IT professional at a chemical plant, was first alerted to the disruption at 5.49am, when a colleague on the night shift reported being unable to access Outlook.

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