CrowdStrike tech outages have caused a big mess for small businesses [Video]

NEW YORK — An owner of a consumer insights research firm couldn’t pay her employees, make Friday’s deadline to sign a contract for a new business or send key research to a key client. A psychiatrist, who runs a virtual mental health practice in Maryland, saw his business hobbled as some of his virtual assistants and therapists couldn’t either make phone calls or log on to their computers. And a restaurant owner in New York City was worried about how he was going to pay his vendors and his workers.

Businesses from airlines to hospitals have been grappling with a faulty software update that caused technological havoc worldwide on Friday, and its repercussions continued through the weekend. The breadth of the outages highlighted the fragility of a digitized world dependent on a few providers for key computing services.

But the problem appeared to divide those affected into haves and have-nots. Major customers of Microsoft and CrowdStrike are getting IT support to resolve the issues, but many smaller businesses …