Steve Jobs' "3rd-Rate Products" Jab Goes Viral Amid Microsoft Outage

Microsoft makes "third-rate products" - Apple co-founder Steve Jobs' damning assessment of the Seattle-based software giant, made back in 1995, went viral Friday as the company battles a major Windows outage issue that has affected millions of users, including commercial services like airlines.

Microsoft Inc. said the error was due to a recent CrowdStrike update, and that it is working recover all affected services. In a detailed post on X the company said it is also "working on rerouting impacted traffic to alternate systems to alleviate impact in a more expedient fashion".

Meanwhile, as the company races to resolve the problem, an interview Steve Jobs gave nearly three decades ago has re-emerged online and has been widely shared.

"The only problems with Microsoft is that they have no taste... they have absolutely no taste. I don't mean that in a small way... I mean that in a big way. They don't think of original ideas and don't bring much culture into their products," Jobs told Bob Cringely, the tech journalist.

"... you say, 'Well, why is that important?' Well, proportionally-spaced fonts come from typesetting and beautiful books. That's where one gets the idea (and) if it weren't for the Mac, they would never have that in their products," he explained.

"And so, I guess I am saddened... not by Microsoft's success. I have no problem with their success. They've earned their success... for the most part."

"I have a problem with the fact that they just make really third-rate products."

Microsoft Cloud Outage Explained

According to Microsoft's Service Health Status updates, the preliminary root cause is "a configuration change in a portion of our Azure backend workloads (that has) caused interruption between storage and compute resources, and which (has) resulted in connectivity failures..."

NDTV Explains | What Is Causing Dreaded Windows 'Blue Screen Of Death'?

These failures affected "downstream (and dependent) Microsoft 365 services".

CrowdStrike Engineering - a cybersecurity services firm that works with Microsoft - has identified a content deployment related to this issue and reverted those changes, and posted steps for resolution for affected Windows users.

READ | Windows Systems Restarting, Throwing 'Blue Screen Of Death' Errors

Services, including critical providers like police and government, across the world have been affected.

Microsoft Services Affected In India

In India, SpiceJet has said it is experiencing "technical challenges" that have affected online ticket booking and check-in, as well as other functionalities.

" We kindly request passengers with upcoming travel plans to arrive at the airport earlier than usual to complete check-in at our counters," the airline said on X.

READ | Microsoft 'Blue Screen Of Death': Full List Of Services Hit In India

New airline Akasa Air and industry veterans IndiGo have put out similar messages. Flight services at Chennai and Mumbai airports have also begun to be affected, sources have told NDTV.