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.
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.
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.
Yeah? Because Chat Control is still a thing. And age verification as well, but the EU won't outsource that to 3rd parties (we have EIDAS and the EU wallet for that).
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.
It'll help when governments stop accepting or just blocking links to onedrive and sharepoint, and file formats that are not open. Then companies are forced into using alternatives instead of just blindly using microsoft, or don't work for any government project again.
Now there’s a business opportunity. When companies are that screwed, they’ll start the project immediately. That’s when system migration consults get rich.
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.
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.
Can confirm! Calc is fine as long as you’re not trying to do anything too advanced. Then again, when you bump into those limits, you might want to consider switching to R or Python anyway. Excel just allows you to delay that inevitability a little bit longer.
Very interesting... I guess my calculations can be supercharged while still technically remaining in the realm of a spreadsheet.
Hopefully Python still runs with its usual consistency. VBA is a total nightmare in this regard. The code can randomly throw some useless error for no obvious reason. You can run the same code a few hours later and everything works perfectly even though you didn't change anything. Can't really use anything that unstable for anything serious.
So I keep hearing... Yet, I'm having a hard time believing that most people are even aware of those fancy features, let alone use any of them.
I accept that there are important models implemented as excel sheets. Reimplementing or even attempting to migrate away is viewed as risk. But this is a different argument.
This is the main problem, changing the infrastructure in companies which use Windows, Certainly Microsoft EU is way more privacy focused (forced by law) than Microsoft US which use even keyloggers and sharing data with Towerdata and a lot of others.
But this, even so, companies and administrations use more and more alternatives to Windows apps and services
The EU has tons of good and even better alternatives to those from US corps, it's not a tecnical problem, but an political and burocratic one for companies and administrations to change, not so for the normal user, who can easily change his setup to his like from a huge catalogue of EU soft and services.
Likewise, climate change isn't really a technological problem. Governments don't motivate companies stop destroying the planet, so they don't. Obviously, there are some technological issues too, but for the most part, it's a political issue.
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...
I just wish that the narrative would focus more on the anti-competitive behavior of these firms to make sure we don’t fall into the same monopolistic trap in Europe. We need variety, we need competition. Focus on standards, low switching costs, and allow reverse engineering.
Merz and von der Leyen are extremely competent, they just don't pursue the goals they say they do. They may even belief that they are pursuing other goals than they really do.
They believe in trickle down economics despite all evidence pointing to it making everything worse. In their pursuit of economic growth, they do the exact thing that in their model should boost, but in reality stifles growth. They increase the wealth redistribution from the poor and middle class to the rich.
And they are so damn good at it. That's the reason money has put them in their current positions.
They are extremely competent in doing the wrong thing.
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.
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.
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.
Still, the title is misdirected, and it sounds like Proton trying to do marketing.
Neither is it true that Europe is ready yet (most companies are stuck with MS products like the other commenter said) nor are all those who want to switch looking for privacy (but rather more independence from US).
Europe ditches US Based tech and software for stuff they control, so they can better enforce their insane privacy invasion laws better more like
Let's not forget most of the swill age verification legislation around the globe is originating from the EU, and that privacy/encryption focused software groups are fleeing the region (see proton) due to their mallegislation
Proton is leaving Switzerland afaik, to operate in the EU. You’re not wrong about the shit the EU is trying to pull with mass surveillance and de-anonymization. Yeae fornyear it geta struck down by courts, but the fuckers try and try.
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?
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...
64 Comments
ekky@sopuli.xyz · 62 pts · 189d
Well, get to it then! Ain't got all year.
upstroke4448@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 39 pts · 189d
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.
Darkmoon_AU@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 189d
Not even the GDPR?
Imaginary_Stand4909@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 188d
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?
IratePirate@feddit.org · 3 pts · 187d
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.
upstroke4448@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 186d
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.
DieserTypMatthias@lemmy.ml · 7 pts · 188d
Yeah? Because Chat Control is still a thing. And age verification as well, but the EU won't outsource that to 3rd parties (we have EIDAS and the EU wallet for that).
FineCoatMummy@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 188d
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."
Zos_Kia@jlai.lu · 3 pts · 188d
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.
turboSnail@piefed.europe.pub · 35 pts · 189d
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.
WanderingThoughts@europe.pub · 21 pts · 189d
It'll help when governments stop accepting or just blocking links to onedrive and sharepoint, and file formats that are not open. Then companies are forced into using alternatives instead of just blindly using microsoft, or don't work for any government project again.
turboSnail@piefed.europe.pub · 4 pts · 189d
Now there’s a business opportunity. When companies are that screwed, they’ll start the project immediately. That’s when system migration consults get rich.
Beherit@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 188d
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.
turboSnail@piefed.europe.pub · 3 pts · 188d
Yep. Money steers the decision making process. Politics determines how money works, and companies just go with the flow.
fierysparrow89@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 188d
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.
turboSnail@piefed.europe.pub · 2 pts · 188d
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.
fierysparrow89@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 188d
Sadly, besides the bottom line, the only universally relaible motivator for an organization is legislation.
turboSnail@piefed.europe.pub · 2 pts · 188d
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.
bobzer@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 189d
Excel is the biggest hurdle to overcome. No other spreadsheet software comes close to providing the same amount of features and functionality.
turboSnail@piefed.europe.pub · 14 pts · 189d
Can confirm! Calc is fine as long as you’re not trying to do anything too advanced. Then again, when you bump into those limits, you might want to consider switching to R or Python anyway. Excel just allows you to delay that inevitability a little bit longer.
timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.works · 12 pts · 189d
This is the real thing of it. By the time you reach that you shouldn't be using a damn spreadsheet program.
At least for greenfield set it up right now. There's plenty of actual programs that do things theyre supposed to.
Ferk@lemmy.ml · 7 pts · 188d
I mean, you can run python (or their own language "LibreOffice Basic") from within a Libreoffice Calc sheet.
Calc's scripting is actually more powerful than the aging VBA thing Excel uses for macros, imho.
turboSnail@piefed.europe.pub · 1 pts · 188d
Very interesting... I guess my calculations can be supercharged while still technically remaining in the realm of a spreadsheet.
Hopefully Python still runs with its usual consistency. VBA is a total nightmare in this regard. The code can randomly throw some useless error for no obvious reason. You can run the same code a few hours later and everything works perfectly even though you didn't change anything. Can't really use anything that unstable for anything serious.
fierysparrow89@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 188d
So I keep hearing... Yet, I'm having a hard time believing that most people are even aware of those fancy features, let alone use any of them.
I accept that there are important models implemented as excel sheets. Reimplementing or even attempting to migrate away is viewed as risk. But this is a different argument.
Auli@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 189d
And a lot of people don't need all those features.
morto@piefed.social · 8 pts · 188d
If they put all the effort they use to change things in favor of ai to migrate to software alternatives, it would be a perfectly viable project
Zerush@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 189d
This is the main problem, changing the infrastructure in companies which use Windows, Certainly Microsoft EU is way more privacy focused (forced by law) than Microsoft US which use even keyloggers and sharing data with Towerdata and a lot of others. But this, even so, companies and administrations use more and more alternatives to Windows apps and services The EU has tons of good and even better alternatives to those from US corps, it's not a tecnical problem, but an political and burocratic one for companies and administrations to change, not so for the normal user, who can easily change his setup to his like from a huge catalogue of EU soft and services.
turboSnail@piefed.europe.pub · 3 pts · 188d
Likewise, climate change isn't really a technological problem. Governments don't motivate companies stop destroying the planet, so they don't. Obviously, there are some technological issues too, but for the most part, it's a political issue.
IratePirate@feddit.org · 2 pts · 187d
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...
turboSnail@piefed.europe.pub · 2 pts · 187d
Same with industrial automation, power grid, production management, etc. Most people don’t even realise how much critical software is Windows-only.
atcorebcor@sh.itjust.works · 27 pts · 188d
I just wish that the narrative would focus more on the anti-competitive behavior of these firms to make sure we don’t fall into the same monopolistic trap in Europe. We need variety, we need competition. Focus on standards, low switching costs, and allow reverse engineering.
darkmogool@feddit.org · 19 pts · 188d
don't talk about it… do it!
herseycokguzelolacak@lemmy.ml · 18 pts · 189d
It will never happen as long as slugs like van der Leyen or Merz are running the show. These people are completely incompetent.
Enkrod@feddit.org · 25 pts · 188d
No.
Merz and von der Leyen are extremely competent, they just don't pursue the goals they say they do. They may even belief that they are pursuing other goals than they really do.
They believe in trickle down economics despite all evidence pointing to it making everything worse. In their pursuit of economic growth, they do the exact thing that in their model should boost, but in reality stifles growth. They increase the wealth redistribution from the poor and middle class to the rich.
And they are so damn good at it. That's the reason money has put them in their current positions.
They are extremely competent in doing the wrong thing.
IratePirate@feddit.org · 6 pts · 187d
It is high time we switch to Pinata economics.
Enkrod@feddit.org · 2 pts · 187d
I like you
Zos_Kia@jlai.lu · 1 pts · 188d
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.
macattack@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 188d
FYI, Proton CEO also caught flak for praising Trump picks, so they are playing both sides of the field FYI
peacefulpixel@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 188d
Yliaster@thelemmy.club · 2 pts · 187d
what's a subpoena?
ferric_carcinization@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 187d
When it's the government asking.
PeroBasta@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 188d
Mentally ready. Actually not ready at all.
maplesaga@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 188d
Given they broke their own procurement laws to choose US tech companies for their cloud infrastructure its definitely silly.
Dead_or_Alive@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 189d
Please do, hurt these tech Oligarchs where it hurts!
vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de · 10 pts · 189d
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
nodiratime@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 188d
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.
biofaust@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 188d
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.
TheEntity@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 189d
The title rubs me the wrong way. "Private alternatives" implies the US tech isn't privately owned.
sanpo@sopuli.xyz · 57 pts · 189d
I think you misread it. "Private", as in "privacy".
turboSnail@piefed.europe.pub · 4 pts · 189d
The company is private, but your data isn't.
Ferk@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 189d
Still, the title is misdirected, and it sounds like Proton trying to do marketing.
Neither is it true that Europe is ready yet (most companies are stuck with MS products like the other commenter said) nor are all those who want to switch looking for privacy (but rather more independence from US).
Justifier@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 189d
Yeah
I agree with the misworded commenter
Europe ditches US Based tech and software for stuff they control, so they can better enforce their insane privacy invasion laws better more like
Let's not forget most of the swill age verification legislation around the globe is originating from the EU, and that privacy/encryption focused software groups are fleeing the region (see proton) due to their mallegislation
SW42@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 189d
Proton is leaving Switzerland afaik, to operate in the EU. You’re not wrong about the shit the EU is trying to pull with mass surveillance and de-anonymization. Yeae fornyear it geta struck down by courts, but the fuckers try and try.
Gammelfisch@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 188d
I am too!
phoenixz@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 188d
Wasn't Europe going full open source?
Chais@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 188d
Not Bavaria 🙄
IratePirate@feddit.org · 2 pts · 187d
The "C" in "CSU" is for "corruption".
AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 187d
You know how there's theory and practice?
Evotech@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 188d
Europe is not ready for what that will cost.
Core_of_Arden@lemmy.ml · 13 pts · 188d
Sure it is. It's the US that's not ready for what it will cost...
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 188d
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
Evotech@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 188d
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?
IratePirate@feddit.org · 3 pts · 187d
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...
pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 188d
True. But it will be okay. They can find somewhere else to spend all the money they save.
Azrael@reddthat.com · 2 pts · 188d
Proton is awesome! I can't say enough good things about them.