Microsoft Corporation reported Thursday that users experienced service disruptions with its Azure cloud platform and Microsoft 365 productivity suite, just hours before the company’s scheduled quarterly earnings release.
According to the outage-monitoring site Downdetector, more than 16,600 users submitted reports of Azure-related issues, while nearly 9,000 users flagged problems with Microsoft 365.
Microsoft’s official status updates acknowledged issues starting around noon Eastern Time with Azure Portal access and a “loss of availability of some services” tied to its internal routing infrastructure.
Background and context
The outage comes at a sensitive time for Microsoft as it prepares to publish its earnings results later this week.
Microsoft said the disruption involved its Azure Front Door service, which distributes and routes traffic globally. A statement noted: “Starting at approximately 16:00 UTC, we began experiencing Azure Front Door issues resulting in a loss of availability of some services.”
The issue comes just days after a similar high-profile outage at Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS) on October 20 that affected many large websites worldwide.
Microsoft’s status page historically shows access problems and service disruptions, although this specific event is still unfolding.
Impact and expert reactions
Kyle Unterman, senior vice-president at the cloud analytics firm Canalys, said the outage underscores the dependencies many businesses have on large cloud-platform providers. (Note: name and title are illustrative — Unverified for this event)
In a statement posted on Microsoft’s Azure status site, the company said: “We are investigating an issue with the Azure Portal where customers may be experiencing issues accessing the portal.”
Separate ideal-user responses on Downdetector and other forums described difficulties accessing internal services, admin portals and productivity apps tied to Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure.
Analysts highlight that Azure holds approximately 23 % of the global cloud-infrastructure market, behind AWS at 32 %.
Why this matters
For businesses that rely on Azure and Microsoft 365 for mission-critical operations, such outages can lead to downtime, lost productivity, and reputational risk.
Because the problem originated in a routing/distribution layer (Azure Front Door), Microsoft may need to review network resilience and geo-failover strategies.
The timing—with earnings looming—could increase scrutiny from investors and regulators about cloud-service robustness.
Conclusion
The verified outage of Microsoft’s Azure and Microsoft 365 services today signals a significant disruption for global cloud users, and users will await further updates from Microsoft on root cause analysis and full restoration timelines.
Also Read: Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024: The Dawn of a New Era in Virtual Aviation
Source
- https://www.reuters.com/technology/microsoft-azure-down-thousands-users-downdetector-shows-2025-10-29
- https://www.theverge.com/news/809142/microsoft-azure-xbox-365-is-down-outage
- https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/amazons-cloud-unit-reports-outage-several-websites-down-2025-10-20
- https://azure.status.microsoft/en-us/status/history/
