Japanese workers return to fax machines during ongoing Microsoft 365 outage

Japanese workers dealing with the impacts of Microsoft's ongoing 365 outage have reportedly taken to analog measures, including using fax machines to deal with the ongoing blackout, the Japan Times reports. An outage that has now lasted nearly 24 hours was still going on Friday when employees turned up to work.

The downtime has meant businesses reliant on Microsoft 365 are unable to use Outlook, Teams, and Copilot, with workplaces hit with error messages and blank screens, forced to reschedule meetings or delay work. For some, the outage has proven a respite from Japan's notoriously workaholic culture. "I couldn’t open Outlook and panicked … I got in touch with my boss and was told to stay home," one person reported on X, while another remarked that the only task they could carry out at work was to clean the coffee machine in the production room.

But while some employees and companies are throwing in the towel and calling it an early weekend, others are taking a novel, more analog approach. "Microsoft’s server glitch has made it impossible to get any work done since this morning. I guess phones and fax machines really are unbeatable. … We’re going full analog!" one user claimed. The report cites another employee who confirmed that their company was switching to fax machines to send the regular updates the company normally sends out as PDFs. "Analog is strong," they rejoiced.

Some 78% of Japanese companies rely on Microsoft for their digital infrastructure. The outage began on Thursday, with mass disruption to Outlook, Teams, Copilot, OneDrive, and Microsoft 365 as a whole. It's a saga impacting entire sectors, including UK health care, businesses, travel, and transport.

Microsoft's latest update said it was seeing "encouraging recovery progress" in Europe, while the situation in America was improving, but warned some users may still experience intermittent issues. The company has also denied rumblings that the outage was caused by a cybersecurity breach. The outage has even caused some companies, such as Switzerland's luxury Richemont (Cartier) outfit, to delay giving their latest earnings report.

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