Microsoft outage has people suggesting brutal new name for company as millions affected worldwide

Microsoft may be down, but the memes aren't.

It's become a tradition to run to X, formerly known as Twitter, when a popular app or site is down, and those unable to log in to work this morning due to the outage did not disappoint as they turned to social media to share their reactions.

The outage, which began on Thursday (November 12), has left email, calendars and AI tools unreliable for users, impacting millions across the globe.

Microsoft 365, the tech giant's suite of workplace apps, including Outlook, Word, Excel and Teams, has been caught up in the outage. Ironically, the 365 in the name refers to the idea of having access to Microsoft's services 365 days a year, which of course, hasn't happened this year.

The joke hasn't missed social media users, who have created endless memes on the moment.

"Breaking news: Microsoft 365 has changed its name to Microsoft 364," one user posted.

Another joked: "Microsoft 365 is just hours away from becoming Microsoft 364. Who in marketing thought that was a good name?"

"It was a bad call to name it as Microsoft 365," a third wrote, while a fourth quipped: "This Microsoft 365 outage is a reminder of how dependent we’ve become on technology. That 365 name is beginning to look like a joke."

"If Microsoft 365 goes off for 5 days, its name will change to Microsoft 360," a fifth post on the site read.

Microsoft are 'seeing encouraging recovery progress'

In a statement shared with UNILAD, Charles Lamanna, EVP, Copilot, Agents and Platform at Microsoft, said: “We’re seeing encouraging recovery progress, with service availability and email delivery performance improving across a growing portion of affected infrastructure. We know our customers rely on our services to get important work done every day, and regret the impact these outages had on those who depend on us. Our teams are reviewing what happened and how we can prevent similar issues going forward.”

Many users are reporting that their Outlook is back up and running, however, people may see a delay in receiving messages, as tech giant has warned of 'intermittent access issues'.

However, the outage caused a major problem in Colorado, with the Arapahoe County Detention Facility reporting that the outage was preventing them from releasing inmates.

The facility relies on outlook to 'verify online bond payments' and, therefore, they are now not able to release inmates unless their bond is paid in person.

"Because of the outage, jail officials are not receiving the email notifications needed to process online bond payments. Until Outlook email is restored, anyone needing to post bond for immediate release must do so in person at the jail," a statement on X read.