A global outage affecting Microsoft's services, including Outlook, Microsoft Teams, and other Microsoft 365 applications, disrupted business communication and operations in several countries this week.

Namibia was no exemption, with several local companies experiencing disruptions to their daily operations as a result of the outage.

Microsoft has, however, since confirmed that it has resolved the technical problem and fully restored its affected services.

The global outage, which began on Thursday, affected Microsoft's services, leaving some unable to access email services, online meetings, document sharing, and other digital tools that businesses rely on to communicate with clients, employees, and stakeholders.

Microsoft attributed the incident to a problem linked to a network capacity upgrade, which surfaced following a subsequent network change.

The company ruled out any cyber attack, saying the disruption was caused by a technical issue.

Local entities that the NBC spoke to noted that the disruption has demonstrated the growing dependence of businesses on cloud-based technology and the risks associated with interruptions to essential digital services.

Public Relations Manager of the University of Namibia Simon Namesho explained the impact of the outage.

“UNAM is a multi-campus university with 12 campuses across the country, so we rely heavily on email and online platforms to maintain communication and connectivity between our campuses. We are also in constant communication with our international partners, and that communication was disrupted as well. The timing of the outage made the situation even more challenging, as it coincided with our examination period, one of the busiest times on our academic calendar. Had it occurred at another time of the year, the impact would likely have been less severe.”
With Microsoft communication disruptions, some businesses resorted to alternative channels to maintain contact with staff and customers.

Microsoft apologised for the inconvenience caused by the outage, which lasted more than 24 hours, saying its engineers completed the recovery process, restoring access to customers and regions that were still experiencing disruptions.