Microsoft suffers tech meltdown, affecting airports, banks and hospitals worldwide.
Tech giant Microsoft reportedly fired a team imposing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies in the company because “DEI programs are no longer seen as business critical” – a direct contrast to their perceived importance in 2020 and after the firm poured millions of dollars into the initiative.
The Big Tech firm disbanded the DEI team at the beginning of the month due to “changing business needs,” according to a July 1 email obtained by Business Insider and corroborated by IGN. The said correspondence was met with blowback from an unnamed DEI team leader at the company, who fired off a missive to thousands of fellow employees the same day.
“True systems-change work associated with DEI programs everywhere are no longer business critical or smart as they were in 2020,” the leader of the team wrote in an email sent to thousands of employees. It is still unclear as to how many employees were affected.
Tech companies, including Microsoft, started to improve diversity efforts after the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer and the historic protests that followed. Back then, the technology firm pledged to invest $150 million into its DEI push and to double the number of Black and Hispanic leaders within the company by 2025.
Microsoft spokesman Jeff Jones claims the company’s dedication to DEI, which has been rebranded to “D&I,” or “Diversity and Inclusion,” is still ongoing. He said: “Our D&I commitments remain unchanged. Our focus on diversity and inclusion is unwavering and we are holding firm on our expectations, prioritizing accountability and continuing to focus on this work.”
In total, Microsoft, which employs 221,000 people worldwide, said women comprise 31.2 percent of all employees globally – a 3.6 percent increase since 2019. The Windows maker said that black employees represent 6.7 percent of its global workforce – up 2.2 percent from 2019, while Hispanic employees comprise eight percent of the company’s workforce. But earlier this year, the company laid off 1,900 staff from its video game divisions and closed both Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin. Last year, the wider company laid off over 10,000 individuals.
Meanwhile, other tech giants and big enterprises such as Zoom, Snap, Tesla, DoorDash, Lyft, Home Depot and Wayfair have also downsized their DEI teams. Zoom laid off a DEI-focused team earlier this year, Bloomberg reported. Google and Meta also cut DEI programs last year, according to CNBC.
Microsoft suffers tech meltdown, affecting airports, banks and hospitals worldwide
Meanwhile, Microsoft suffered a massive global IT outage involving disruptions in thousands of Windows personal computers, starting Thursday evening, July 18, and continuing the next day, which hit airports, banks, hospitals, broadcasting networks and other critical infrastructure as well as 911 emergency call centers as they rely on the said operating system.
Microsoft said it was aware of an issue affecting people’s ability to access 365 services. In an update issued around 1:00 a.m. PT (4:00 a.m. ET), the company said, “Multiple services are continuing to see improvements in availability as our mitigation actions progress.”
The outage, which also took down the London Stock Exchange, has been linked to problems with Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing system, causing users to lose access to Office products and Windows systems more broadly. Widely used cybersecurity platform CrowdStrike pointed to a defect in an update it had delivered for the customers, while other operating systems including Mac were unaffected. In a statement on Friday morning, July 19, CrowdStrike said the issue had been “identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.”
“This is not a security incident or cyberattack,” CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz also wrote on X.
Among the businesses and institutions around the world that the outage knocked offline were Britain’s biggest train company, the parent company of Southern, Thameslink, Gatwick Express and Great Northern. Ryanair was among the major British airlines saying its flights were being disrupted by the outage, while Sky News was knocked off-air on Friday morning. Meanwhile, all flights from several major American airlines, including Delta, United and American Airlines, were grounded due to a “communication issue.”
Banks, supermarkets and other major institutions across the globe also reported computer issues, with thousands of general practitioner practices across England struggling to book appointments and issue prescriptions.
The disruption also prevented some television stations from airing shows. Several affiliates for Scripps News could not air local news reports, the Associated Press reported. By Friday, though, roughly 90 percent were operational. And anchors for an NBC affiliate in San Francisco turned to YouTube to tell viewers that “massive technical difficulties” were behind Thursday’s programming disruptions.
The Canadian Broadcast Corp. was able to broadcast but said its own IT systems had been affected. Sky News in the United Kingdom was knocked off the air in the early morning but was still able to deliver updates on its app and website during the broadcast outage. ABC News in Australia was unable to deliver its usual evening news update, instead showing a special report on the disruption at Sydney airports.
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