Microsoft Teams experiencing downtime, mainly on the West Coast

The Microsoft Teams videoconferencing application is experiencing an apparent disruption on Thursday night in major cities in the United States, but particularly on the West Coast.

The outage, which appears to have started around 4:15 pm PT, appears to be primarily affecting users in Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles, according to DownDetector. Site users reported that they were unable to log into the application and were unable to make calls.

Microsoft Teams is one of the most popular alternatives to the Zoom video conferencing application, with 115 million daily active users. Microsoft reported a 50% jump in user numbers in October, reflecting the industry’s huge growth last year when the coronavirus pandemic forced people to connect with co-workers, family, friends and co-workers through video chat services.

Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the cause of the outage and when it should be resolved.