- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
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I think its great that Europe is looking to rely less on US tech but nothing about whats going on with Europe (especially within the EU) makes me think privacy is a focus.
Not even the GDPR?
It hasn’t stopped countries like France, and Italy (not a complete list just examples) from being some of the least privacy friendly western governments.
GDPR is nice and all, but people have been fighting chat control and all its hydra heads for years now, so no.
But I’m an American so what do I know?
But I’m an American so what do I know?
You know much more about the world around you than the orange turd that claims to be the leader of the free world. Don’t sell yourself short, mate! It’ll take people like you to rebuild once this is over.
That reminds me of a quote I heard once. Probably from Cory Doctorow but I cannot remember now.
“Everyone wants you to have privacy… just not from them.”
Companies that have had their whole data on Google/MS servers for 20 years certainly don’t care for privacy the way you and I do. But they are certainly realizing that US providers are not the way to go. Baby steps I guess.
I think many companies are basically stuck with Microsoft (Excel, Word, Teams, Sharepoint, Onedrive etc). Switching to something else is going to be a pretty serious project. It’s going to be expensive and time consuming.
Totally worth doing IMO, but convincing the CEO is another matter. I guess we need a cautionary tale before the executives decide to reserve a few million euros for rebuilding a significant part of the IT infrastructure.
Just have companies get tax reductions if they use EU only software. Voila, it’s done within months - to the shock of every it- admin out there.
Yep. Money steers the decision making process. Politics determines how money works, and companies just go with the flow.
Convincing CEOs is not our job. In general they have neither the obligation nor the habbit to take anything else other than their KPIs into consideration. Convincing elected polititians to legistlate is our job.
Some know already, some will bow to reason, many will do whatever keeps them elected. People will need to re-learn to play the long game.
I totally agree with you. Politics is the correct arena for this.
Those who work at the IT department of a company have some authority in this matter too, and they can convince the executives to channel the resources for the migration. If you’re in any other part of the organization tree, your words have less weight.
If laws are written first, and companies react after that, it’s not going to be a very smooth landing, but I still think this is the most likely outcome. Ideally, smart IT people in various companies would bring this up as a potential risk to daily operations. This way, companies would have more time to react before the laws are enforced.
My guess is, most executives won’t give any money to a migration project of this magnitude unless the future of the company depends on it. There needs to be some sort of impending doom in the horizon, before they start reacting. Maybe massive fines or a total collapse of the IT infrastructure would do it.
Sadly, besides the bottom line, the only universally relaible motivator for an organization is legislation.
If there’s a way around the legislation, they’ll definitely take it. If you know of an exploit in the system or if you’re best buddies with the local king, laws suddenly cease to matter.
I think many companies are basically stuck with Microsoft (Excel, Word, Teams, Sharepoint, Onedrive etc).
Tbh, office and collaboration tools are the least of our worries; there are plenty of good alternatives which, with some financial support, can be adapted to suit companies’ needs in very little time. What should worry us more are the tons of critical applications tailored to a very specific area of administration and business. The software that runs the power plants and hospitals. The software that manages logistics and industrialised production. The software that runs our accounting and HR. That’s the Windows lock-in that we’re not going to shake off over night.
Oh, that and the hardware vendors + hyperscalers…
Same with industrial automation, power grid, production management, etc. Most people don’t even realise how much critical software is Windows-only.
It will never happen as long as slugs like van der Leyen or Merz are running the show. These people are completely incompetent.
Oh yes. Because Merz builds data centers, and Der Leyen is known for making IT decisions at EU companies. They also happen to be the queens of private investors.
don’t talk about it… do it!
Please do, hurt these tech Oligarchs where it hurts!
FYI, Proton CEO also caught flak for praising Trump picks, so they are playing both sides of the field FYI
in that article (which i had to use the Bypass Paywalls Clean extension to comfortably read) Proton states “we do not comply with US subpoenas from either party.” which of course is because they comply fully with Swiss subpoenas LOL
what’s a subpoena?
oh god… we have built everything on microsoft stuff and the higher ups insist that anything that legally can be hosted on the cloud be migrated to azure. This will cause us (the actual workers) untold levels of pain if it were mandated by the eu.
I still wish it does become mandatory though
Meanwhile, my employer decided to switch from a self made Linux platform (with it’s pitfalls due to the usual “it’s free, why should we put so much money into maintenance” reasoning) to Microslop. I and multiple other people warned them, again and again.
The title rubs me the wrong way. “Private alternatives” implies the US tech isn’t privately owned.
France is. The EU is working on trying to get EU-made solutions in use. Switzerland is not in the EU and neither is the UK.
Now that we established this, we can have a productive conversation.
Proton is awesome! I can’t say enough good things about them.
Doubt it, honestly. The NSA has a Consolidated Intelligence Center in Wiesbaden as well as Darmstadt’s Dagger Complex just a stones throw away from Frankfurt the center of EU finance and logistical hub. Any alternative will be compromised with these bases remain.
I am too!
Europe is not ready for what that will cost.
France is switching from Microsoft Office to Libre Office right now for government employees, and it’s saving them money in licensing fees.
Once the transition is finished, they’re projected to save millions each year from just that switch
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. There’s so much reschooling. Projects for making adjustments. How will they do data compliance now? They’ve relied SharePoint for so long. Will they go back to sharing final_final.doc?
Europe is not ready for what that will cost.
True. But it will be okay. They can find somewhere else to spend all the money they save.
Europe is not ready for what that will cost.
Not true. We’ve seen the U.S. leverage big tech against its perceived enemies by shutting them down remotely. Unless Europe bends over backwards to serve the U.S. fascists’ every whim, this form of blackmail-by-proxy is going to continue, and it’s only going to get worse.
So the calculation is not: “cost of switching” vs. “cost of continuing the existing vendor lock-in”.
It is: “cost of switching” vs. “cost of shutting down operations for good”.
It’s really easy maths if you break it down to its core. It’s maths that even the most bone-headed of our leaders and business “experts” can do. That is, unless they’re peddling somebody else’s agenda…
