Microsoft announced that it has fixed an issue preventing Office 365 users from logging in or activating their Office 365 subscription. Apparently, the company had to face two different problems: Office 365 commercial users being unable to sign in to the cloud productivity suite, and consumers being unable to activate their Office 365 Personal and Home subscription in their Office apps.
We’re investigating an issue in which users may be unable to sign-in to Office 365 and are receiving an error related to Office 365 subscription activation. More details can be found in the admin portal under MO146611.
— Office 365 Status (@Office365Status) August 16, 2018
We have been personally affected by the second issue over the past couple of weeks, with the Office apps not recognizing an active Office 365 subscription across several devices (Windows 10 PC, Mac, and even iOS). In our case, we can confirm that the situation is back to normal as of this writing. As noted by ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley, Office 365 users on macOS may need to use the Office License Removal tool if Office 2016 for Mac still doesn’t recognize a valid Office 365 license.
Office 365 reached 100 million commercial active users last year, and Microsoft revealed during its latest financial results that it now has 31.4 million Office 365 consumer subscribers. Office has definitely become a core business for Microsoft, and the company can’t really afford to let its customers down and risking losing some to the competition from Google and others.
Further reading: Activation, Office 365
