Global Microsoft outage disrupts healthcare, schools, businesses

WASHINGTON, Nov 13: Healthcare services were disrupted, corporate earnings reports delayed and schools struggled to communicate on Friday as a widespread outage affecting several Microsoft products, including Outlook, rippled across the globe, with no indication of when full service would be restored.

Microsoft reported "encouraging recovery progress" in Europe and service improving in North America, but a top UK trade union said the disruptions were having a "serious impact" on the country's health care service.

National Health Service staff receiving emergency calls were "unable to refer patient details in the normal way which is creating a massive backlog and has the potential for chaos," said Rachel Harrison, public services head at the GMB union.�" AFP