Microsoft Outlook back online for some users

Detailed summary

Access to Microsoft Outlook has been restored for some users in the UAE, The National can confirm.Users began receiving emails again on their Outlook accounts starting at about…

Access to Microsoft Outlook has been restored for some users in the UAE, The National can confirm.

Users began receiving emails again on their Outlook accounts starting at about 5.20pm local time, on both desktop and mobile versions of the app.

The restoration comes after Microsoft said on Friday that its email services were being restored in parts of the Asia Pacific region, after "broader improvements" were observed in North America and "sustained improvements" across much of Europe.

The US tech major, however, acknowledged that some users may continue to experience intermittent access issues or delayed email delivery "as mitigation progresses across the remaining affected infrastructure".

The disruption affected Outlook, Teams and the Copilot AI service for millions of people, companies and governments around the world on Thursday, and the issue continued into Friday.

"Traffic is being gradually restored and we're seeing improvements in key customer scenarios, including mailbox access and delayed email processing. However, some users may continue to experience intermittent issues," Microsoft said in an update.

The company has also stressed that it has found no evidence that the outage was triggered by a cyberattack.

"We have no evidence of malicious activity associated with this incident," Microsoft said.

Analysts have told The National that a continuing outage of Microsoft’s collaboration tools would have a “cascading” effect on businesses, with the financial impact increasing the longer it stretches.

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