On Wednesday, mere hours prior to Microsoft's scheduled release of its quarterly financial results, an abrupt service outage struck its Azure cloud service and 365 office suite. Social media users quickly took to the platforms, lamenting their inability to access their own websites as well as services that are heavily reliant on Microsoft products. The impact wasn't limited to individual users; several Microsoft websites felt the brunt as well. The official Xbox website and the investor relations page were among those that went down. Drawing on user reports, the fault - monitoring platform Downdetector revealed that the issues first started to surface around 11:40 AM Eastern Time in the United States. This sudden disruption not only caused inconvenience to countless users but also raised concerns about the stability of such widely - used digital services at a crucial moment for Microsoft.