Microsoft Teams went down across Europe for two hours on Monday, causing mass frustration for the many remote workers now increasingly dependent on the service.

Users experienced issues signing into the service and also trouble sending messages. 

Although Microsoft managed to fix the problem within two hours, the timing could not be worse as millions of people across the country began remote working amind the outbreak of COVID-19. 

As users from various European countries began reporting issues, Microsoft tweeted that it was looking into the problem.

“We’re investigating messaging-related functionality problems within Microsoft Teams. Please refer to TM206544 in your admin centre for further details,” the company said. 

This is the second major outage to hit Microsoft in as many years after Office 365 went offline in 2018. There is a suggestion that Monday’s faults could be due to more people using the services as businesses encourage workers to stay home.

Just a week ago, Microsoft offered a six-month free trial for Teams, according to Businesses Insider, to help those soon to be self-isolating. Google has also offered up parts of its remote working services in a bid to work around the coronavirus outbreak. 

Microsoft’s outage is a poor start to what could be a big opportunity for cloud computing.

With mass remote working and many business events going “virtual”, video linkups, VR and other similar technologies will become a crucial element of everyday life. 

Outages and service disruptions are common occurrences with new technologies, but as the world begins what looks like a prolonged period of self-isolation, it’s these kinds of services that will keep many industries ticking along.

Add to that, the need for us all to stay connected to one another during a pandemic and Microsoft Team’s and services like it have suddenly become vital.