Microsoft and Delta Air Lines were not happy with each other after the massive CrowdStrike outage in July.
According to The Verge, Microsoft’s legal representatives sent a letter to Delta Air Lines’ lawyers, placing some of the blame for Delta’s weekend flight issues on Delta itself. The letter was issued in response to Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian’s comments questioning Microsoft’s capabilities, calling Bastian’s comments “incomplete, false, misleading and damaging to Microsoft and its reputation”.
Microsoft says CrowdStrike outage affects more devices than reported
Microsoft denies responsibility for Delta Air Lines outages
According to Microsoft, it offered to help Delta Air Lines resolve the CrowdStrike issue for free immediately after the outage, but was turned down. Additionally, Microsoft claimed that Delta declined help because the IT infrastructure that needed repairs actually belonged to another company, such as IBM, and not Windows.
Mix and match speed of light
It’s virtually impossible to determine who was right or wrong here, but it’s clear that Microsoft and Delta had fundamental differences over the issues that ultimately led to Delta suffering so many flight delays and cancellations that fateful weekend.
The outage was caused by a faulty update of CrowdStrike security software, which is not owned or created by Microsoft. However, the update was released to millions of Windows computers around the world, causing a massive blue screen of death.
