A major technical outage at Microsoft has disrupted access to a range of widely used online services, affecting businesses and individual users.
The disruption impacted several key platforms, including Outlook email, Teams messaging and other Microsoft 365 applications, leaving thousands of users unable to access their accounts.
Outage-tracking website Down Detector recorded thousands of reports of problems, with Outlook at the height of the disruption.
Microsoft has acknowledged technical issues affecting its systems and says efforts to restore services are showing signs of progress.
Microsoft says several of its servers unexpectedly went offline, placing additional pressure on its remaining infrastructure and disrupting access to email accounts.
The company says automated systems designed to check server performance appeared to be contributing to the problem.
Engineers have been restarting affected servers, redirecting traffic and deploying technical fixes.
Microsoft says an initial intervention has successfully restored some servers, with the solution now being rolled out more widely.
The outage has also affected other Microsoft 365 services, although the company says an earlier disruption to Teams has now been resolved
Video | Microsoft 365, Outlook and Teams hit by global outage: