Microsoft outage hits UAE residents, businesses as Outlook, Teams face disruption

Detailed summary

Email-dependent professionals, parents and students in the UAE faced delays and error messages as Microsoft’s services stumbled. Schools urged families to use landlines for urgent…

Residents and businesses across the UAE struggled to send emails, access mailboxes and retrieve documents as a global Microsoft outage disrupted Outlook and other services.

Disruptions to Microsoft services such as Outlook and Teams began on Thursday as the company struggled to resolve server problems, affecting businesses and government agencies worldwide.

Yasser Ahmad, a long-time UAE resident, said he could not send emails or access his mailbox despite several attempts.

“Important emails, business correspondence and follow-ups have been delayed, affecting productivity and making it difficult to carry out daily responsibilities smoothly,” he said. “This disruption has caused considerable inconvenience, particularly when timely communication is essential for both professional and personal matters.”

He added that he hoped the issue would be resolved soon so that normal email activity could resume.

Dheeraj Thakur, a communications executive, said the disruption had caused temporary communication challenges for businesses globally, but operations had largely continued as normal.

“Our team adapted to alternative communication channels to minimise any inconvenience,” he said. “We expect normal services to resume shortly.”

For Dubai-based administrative staff S.G., the outage has brought added stress rather than relief. She said she was hoping the issue would be resolved before the start of the working week so she could catch up on pending tasks in advance.

“If the outage gets resolved today or tomorrow, I’ll get to work so I won’t be too tired and busy when I come in on Monday,” said the 27 year-old Filipino expat.

Opening of the article, excerpted from Khaleej Times Business. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.