However, as we have seen, Microsoft’s workplace collaboration service cannot always handle the strain of so many users. After going down briefly two weeks ago, Microsoft Teams was out again this morning at the start of the work week. With Europe’s big five nations effectively shut down; people have become increasingly reliant on online services. By its very nature as an enterprise communication tool, Microsoft Teams was always going to be under strain. Indeed, Microsoft announced recently that its daily active users base has jumped from around 20 million to 44 million in the space of a week. However, while an outage is understandable, it remains a frustration for people who are relaying on Microsoft services to work during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Outage
Users across Europe started reporting the service went down around 9 am BST. This outage was later confirmed on Downdetector. The website showed 58 reports within 15 minutes from users confirming the outage. By 10 am, the outage seemed to have subsided and no more reports appeared. While Teams was back up and running, Microsoft did not officially address the outage. Until the company responds, it is unclear how many people were affected. However, it seems this outage was smaller than two weeks ago. It makes sense that Microsoft has increased resources to handle more people using the service. Still, it seems Teams will face strains from time to time for the foreseeable future.
