I can’t stop laughing:
Microsoft Office 365 down worldwide https://t.co/1uUw6fNN2B pic.twitter.com/Hi96L3JFnW
— Newshub (@NewshubNZ) November 20, 2019
I’m evil, I know, but the schadenfreude is killing me.
I don’t feel even a little sorry for these people. They’ve been warned repeatedly about something like this happening. Some organizations, like CERN, saw this sort of thing coming and started investigating alternatives but most just went blithely on assuming everything would be okay. Until it wasn’t. Of course, this is just a blip and by the time you read this Microsoft will undoubtedly have found and fixed the problem. But here’s some questions for those addicted to Microsoft Office:
- What happens if something like this occurs when you have a hard deadline? Imagine a law firm, say, that can’t file a brief in time and costs a client their money/freedom/life.
- Could your organization survive for an extended time without email?
- What happens when Microsoft end-of-lifes Office? Will you be able to read your old Word documents or Excel spreadsheets?
I know I keep harping on this but you must retain control of your data and the means to access it. If you don’t, sooner or later you will experience massive hurt. When that happens, don’t bother moaning about how evil your software vendor is because no one will feel sorry for you then either.
As a practical matter, this means you should use open-source/open-standards software. If you don’t, disaster will eventually strike and it won’t matter that you were using the “industry standard” office suite. Your data will still be gone.