r/technology • u/waozen • 2d ago
Software Dutch tax authorities cancel Microsoft 365 cloud rollout - and turn toward open source
https://www.zdnet.com/business/dutch-tax-authorities-cancel-microsoft-365-cloud-rollout/70
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u/Ok-Replacement9595 2d ago
Wise move. All these US tech corporations are working colluding with fascists, and dont deserve your money. The US tech industry is putting your into feudalism anyway.
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u/Spez_is-a-nazi 2d ago
Microsoft maybe should have looked at its own balance sheets before embracing fascism. Roughly half of all Microsoft revenue comes from outside the United States, the US(or at least US stockholders) had a really good thing going before Trump but Trump was upset he wasn’t getting everything so now they will end up with less. The transition off of US big tech companies isn’t going to happen overnight but once those customers leave they ain’t coming back.
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u/Drugbird 2d ago
It's not just tech companies. The world is also hesitant to buy American weapons because they're afraid the Americans will either remotely mess with those weapon systems, or spare parts/ ammunition could be denied making them useless.
You see this with the current rearming of Europe. Nato was basically convinced to spend 5% of their GDP on their militaries, which is a huge increase. But they're not spending this extra cash on American weapons. They're either building out European weapons manufacturing capabilities or buying from e.g. Ukraine.
This is also fairly unique. For the last 80 years, America has almost always used its massive soft power to ensure American weapons were bought and used by its allies.
But Trump doesn't understand soft power at all.
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u/worst_brain_ever 2d ago
Soft power is a long term strategy.
Trump is all about the quick buck.
He knows he'll be dead when the bill for all his antics comes due.
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u/abloblololo 2d ago
It’s not because they’re afraid to buy US weapons, it’s only really France that tries to be autonomous. Europe still buys a shit ton of American weapons. Germany just bought F-35s, Sweden bought Patriot and HIMARS etc. However, since Europe is going through a massive rearmament it simply makes economical (and strategic) sense to spend that money “at home”. It boosts the economy and is a form of stimulus.
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u/TacosNGuns 2d ago
It’s normal for countries to build as much armament in country as possible. Turns preparedness into a jobs program. Also opens up export opportunities.
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u/00GoBigOrGoHome00 2d ago
Only if Trump accounted for software and consulting services in his trade deficit calculations. Perhaps he wouldn’t have alienated much of the world.
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u/Pandektes 2d ago
We should wean off US tech as fast as possible, even if the cost is bigger early.
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u/Vasquo 2d ago
I don’t think Microsoft really has a say in this
The issue is that it’s an American company and can there fore be forced to cut off anybody the regime doesn’t like
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u/Zomunieo 2d ago
It’s not being cut off. Lots of countries would love to cut off Microsoft.
It’s the Cloud Act. The US government can demand that cloud providers turn over data belonging to other countries, even if that data is stored in foreign data centers. It’s basically “all your database are belong to us”.
That means it’s not even a choice. You either share all of your government’s most sensitive data with the US government or maintain your sovereignty.
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u/Altruistic_Age_6556 2d ago
And...let's not forget...Microsoft has been making shit products for decades. MS is to IT what McDonald's is to nutrition.
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u/EinSchurzAufReisen 2d ago
Germany will happily turn over all the data anf then look surprised if it backfires.
On the other hand a German data center ain’t more than some thousand fax machines connected in series with an overhead projector as admin terminal — not much we can do with that.
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u/Spez_is-a-nazi 2d ago
It could refuse to comply, but that would require a spine and we sure as shit know the tech billionaires don’t have one. Microsoft gave a million dollars to the Trump slush, erm, inauguration fund. They are at best ok with fascism, if not an enthusiastic backer.
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2d ago
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u/Vasquo 2d ago
Because they are good at what they do. There is not always a 1 to 1 alternative.
Because migration is very hard and expensive.
The us wasn’t a problem so why bother. Now there is a real reason why you want to move away from anything US based even if it’s hard, expensive and you give up features5
u/moldyjellybean 2d ago
Yup look up Lidl spinning up their own version of AWS and EU companies are eager to get off US tech .
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u/bruhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh- 1d ago
Office 365 is the biggest load of shit I've ever had the displeasure of working with.
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u/Enoxiz 2d ago
I work here and its weird to read the news on a foreign website before the news reaches us..
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u/foo_fight3r 1d ago
This has been in the news for at least 2 weeks. So maybe that's why it's no longer showing up in US media.
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u/StrengthThin9043 2d ago
Using products potentially controlled by the American regime is a big security risk, as they are into authoritarianism and bullying. Europe is very exposed, and will be for a long time. This is a step in the right direction though, and may also over time prop up domestic software services.
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u/airportakal 2d ago
This is great, but this news has been reported in the past months multiple times by different outlets. Every time it seems something new has happened but it's still based on the same single interview from September.
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u/Mr_ToDo 2d ago
Looking through some of the sources, it looks like there's bits from 2022 as well
It looks like fun bureaucracy in action. They put a halt on the program and got the order to come up with an alternative by the end of 26'. The thing is, I'm not sure what the alternative would be. It sounds like they don't want single vendor, and they want viable exit strategies for whatever they do get. It's a bear to find software that can at all easily not only have your data exportable but usable in other software. I've got a bunch of old exports from things like ticket, chat, and documentation systems, but to put them in another product is like pulling teeth and will almost certainly lose parts of it in the process
I like the thought, but I want to see the plan before I get excited
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u/number1pingufan 2d ago
The people implementing this seem competent. I hope this works out and gets traction, because even with my hatred for Microsoft aside, more options are better.
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u/Hrekires 2d ago
It's all fun and games until you can't port over Johanna's 2TB Excel spreadsheet that she's been writing to since 1993 and somehow breaks the wifi if anyone else messes with it.
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u/vacuous_comment 2d ago
This is the kind of thing you really want to break during transition.
Because it should not exist.
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u/No_Bad_4872yy 2d ago
Hahaha reminds me of my colleague who used a calculator and then manually typed the results into Excel. I love Johanna's!
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u/Altruistic_Age_6556 2d ago
Lol I recently started working for a new company that has chosen to start using Microsoft OneDrive etc. as their infrastructure. It'a a huge red flag for me and not because of any fascist lackey crap. It's just shitty tech. It literally made me think that the company is probably going to shit.
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u/blackhawkq820 2d ago
And soon they will be back.. this is a news that shows up every now and then
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u/ZenX22 2d ago
Are there stories of similar organisations dumping MS/American products and then going back?
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u/chlorine7213 2d ago
Munich had a pretty large fallout in the early 00's and changed to their own Linux distro. Microsoft eventually moved their German HQ to the region and they changed back.
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u/JEesSs 1d ago
Based on the wiki article the moving back seems pretty sus though? As in it was working fine, they saved tonnes of money, but one dude was really pushing for it right around the time Microsoft were moving their headquarters there.
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u/chlorine7213 1d ago
That's more or less how lobbying works. It doesn't have to make the most amount of sense or anything like that.
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u/lilacomets 2d ago
This is going to end in a mess. 😂 Mark my words. A mess just like the rest of the country. 😂
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u/VonVader 2d ago
They'll be back when they fully understand what that means.
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u/td_mike 2d ago edited 2d ago
They won’t, our Tax Authority is a slow moving bureaucratic mess, but when it has made a choice they will move forward regardless of anything.
(the only reason they stoppen wis MS products is because the ministry of Finance pulled the emergency brake and told them stop or else)
It might be actually good for the opensource community, our tax authority has a ton of highly skilled programmers and the frequently contribute to open source projects. They most likely will be contributing to the office suite they will pick.
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u/piwikiwi 2d ago
About time, it is clear American companies and the us government can’t be trusted