DENVER — Microsoft’s Outlook email application and multiple other services were inaccessible starting late Thursday morning.
While some workers were rejoicing on social media, other industries were unable to perform necessary daily tasks with the effects of the outage hitting everything from internal government communications to bond payment processes.
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Microsoft and Outlook are used by the United States Federal Government, Colorado’s State Agencies and City and County of Denver government offices.
The Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office posted to Facebook Thursday that the outage was “affecting online bond payments for individuals being held at the Arapahoe County Detention Facility. Because of the outage, jail officials are not receiving the email notifications needed to process online bond payments.”
Until Outlook is restored, the post read, anyone needing to post bond would have to do so in person.
Colorado’s Judicial Branch also announced on their website that certain services had been impacted, and both Colorado State University and the University of Colorado Boulder warned students and faculty that communication would be effected.
Mark Gregory, a professor from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, told CNN Thursday that the outage could cost billions of dollars.
“If we then look at the number of people that are likely to be impacted, and we put a dollar value on their wasted time, because many people were just sitting looking at computers today or putting their feet on their desk and, and having a nap,” Gregory said. “We should anticipate that that bill is going to be, you know, in the tens of billions of dollars, probably more likely $50 to more billion dollars globally.”
Microsoft didn’t give a timeline for when service would be fully restored, but did extend Outlook’s email timeout window to 48 hours to save any delayed messages.
Check the status of the outage here.
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