DISRUPTION stemming from the global Microsoft outage was yesterday felt across the Island’s private and public sectors as the technology company worked to restore services.
The issue, which began emerging on Thursday evening, was reported around the world and affected access to Outlook and a number of other Microsoft 365 services.
The disruption was reportedly linked to problems with Microsoft’s server infrastructure, with the company stating on Friday afternoon that it was “continuing to see improvements in service availability, with email queues significantly reduced and approaching normal levels”.
During the outage, the government advised Islanders that it had implemented “business continuity plans” across all affected departments, noting that, while emails were impacted, “all other systems are running”.
A number of businesses also took to social media to notify customers about the situation.
Jersey Electricity said it experienced disruption to its email service, while Jersey Post stated that, along with Jersey Customs, the issue had meant it was unable to send automated notifications to customers advising them to declare and release their parcels.
Torin Mitchell, who chairs the Chamber of Commerce’s Digital Advantage Committee, described the outage’s impact as “quite widespread”.
He said: “It does affect all businesses that use Microsoft and grinds things to halt particularly where people are email heavy.”
Digital Jersey chief executive Tony Moretta said: “Most financial services firms use Microsoft, that’s one of the reasons why Co-pilot is used so much because its connected. Government is also very Microsoft heavy. Most of us are.”
He described the duration of the outage as “unusual”.
