On November 12, 2026, Microsoft experienced a widespread outage affecting Exchange Online, the cloud service that powers Microsoft 365 email. Many businesses experienced difficulties accessing Outlook, sending and receiving emails, and loading their mailboxes. Other Microsoft services may also have been affected. Microsoft has been working to restore services and address the underlying infrastructure issues. This was a Microsoft-side service disruption and was not necessarily related to your individual computers, office network, or Internet connection.
An Important Reminder About Business Continuity
As much as we work to keep technology running smoothly, no technology or service is 100% guaranteed to be available at all times. Even major providers like Microsoft – or even Google or AWS and others – can experience unexpected outages. That’s why we encourage businesses to prepare ahead of time with backup plans—such as alternative communication channels or secondary cloud storage—in case their primary systems go down.
When it comes to communicating with clients, employees, vendors and others:
Keep important client and employee phone numbers readily accessible.
Have an alternative way to communicate with employees, such as phone calls or text messaging.
Make sure employees know who to contact and how to communicate during an email outage.
Consider alternative communication methods for urgent business matters that cannot wait for email service to return.
At SkyViewTek, we believe good IT planning isn’t just about preventing problems, it’s also about knowing how to keep your business operating when something unexpected happens.
If you’re a CEO or CFO, please contact us today to develop your Business Continuity Plan.