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Dutch Parliament: Time to ditch US tech for homegrown options

theregister.com

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Re: Dutch Parliament: Time to ditch US tech for homegrown options

#131

Post by acdha »

owisd wrote: post #60
egorfine wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also yes, because it's easier to start in a jurisdiction with sane laws and bearable tax burden, none of which is available in the EU. EU is indeed drowning in mind boggling bureaucracy. Source: am a startup in the EU.

If it was merely about taxes and regulations then nobody would want to choose California over almost any other state for their startup.

This popular mythology in certain circles but it relies on people not calculating the effective total tax rate, including local and property taxes, and in that case California is the 13th cheapest state in the country:

https://wallethub.com/edu/best-worst-states-to-be-a-taxpayer...

You also want to consider what your taxes fund – for example, a startup founder probably benefits from proximity to two of the best university systems in the country and the better quality of life means you get more top people in your employee and networking pools. The ultra-rich are going to leave but a founder who isn’t already in the top income bracket is making an economically rational decision.

Re: Dutch Parliament: Time to ditch US tech for homegrown options

#132

Post by berkes »

tossandthrow wrote: post #102
xbmcuser wrote: post #43

Lets see if they put cash where there mouth is they should have been pouring billions of dollars into opensource software instead of paying Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Oracle etc in the first place. Europe countries have been client states of the USA for decades and just do whatever USA wanted first time USA has hurt their own interests so are waking up to the fact.

I was pondering in why the EU never really got targeted directly like Canada and Mexico with Trumps tarifs. I think this is it. And it would be incredibly bad for US tech billionaires if the EU started to move home all these contracts.

Indeed. In many quarterly reports of large tech companies, the revenue from the whole of Europe combined is sometimes bigger than that from the US. European revenue is often a close second.

It's truly significant if this revenue dissapears. Which is why I am baffled by how e.g. Zuckerberg is flailing at Europe and the EU. If EU regulations cut services off, or users move elsewhere out of fear or disagreement, that would be a crippling drop in revenue. For some tech companies enough to put them under, I'd say.

Re: Dutch Parliament: Time to ditch US tech for homegrown options

#133

Post by crote »

egorfine wrote: post #45

And replace with what, more regulations? Source: am a startup in the EU. The amount of bureaucracy is kafkaesque.

Funny, because those motions were for a good part inspired by local companies complaining that they weren't even approached prior to critical infrastructure being outsourced to Amazon.

There's undoubtedly bureaucracy, but that hasn't stopped local companies from popping up. The bigger problem is CxOs thinking a transition to $LocalCorp would look less sexy on their resumé than a transition to Amazon or Azure.

Besides, when US tech companies operate in the EU, they still have to follow all those regulations. They don't get an exception for being based in the US. If anything, it should be easier for a small local company to operate.

Re: Dutch Parliament: Time to ditch US tech for homegrown options

#134

Post by cess11 »

egorfine wrote: post #109
rad_gruchalski wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, it’s possible in Germany. What problems do you have in Poland?

> Oh, it’s possible in Germany Of course. How do I fire an employee? That's right, I don't. Otherwise sure it's possible.

If you have a reason, just terminate the contract? That's how it works in pretty much all of the EU.

Re: Dutch Parliament: Time to ditch US tech for homegrown options

#135

Post by keyringlight »

oever wrote: post #46
riskyingo wrote: post #2

I hope more countries will follow suit

France and Germany are already taking steps and have deployed a significant systems. Dutch parliament gave a strong signal to the Dutch government to also move in that direction. The government has no plans to move their spending from Microsoft to European businesses. On the contrary, they are still very likely to move more systems into O365.

I wonder if this would be a favorable time for someone within the EU to pursue MS with regards the windows user account being tied to an online account unless you jump through unofficial (or at least hidden) hoops. In the context of a business/office I doubt it's a big issue, but it'd be interesting whether there's any angle that businesses or individuals should be able to run their computers independently. There's been a strong distaste for the compulsory online user account for years now, although knowing luck if forced MS would find a way to only comply within territories they have to rather than making it a basic opt-in for all users wherever they live.

Re: Dutch Parliament: Time to ditch US tech for homegrown options

#136

Post by baq »

belter wrote: post #105
stego-tech wrote: post #12

Called it, again . Data sovereignty is the true trend of the next decade. Not Quantum, not AI, but the new multi-pole world order divesting from Americentric technologies and back into the sort of locally-grown economies that children of the Cold War would be familiar with. Local vendors serving local needs with a focus on regional, not global, scale and service. Us Cassandra types have been screaming for years that…

Dump Office and Teams. Easy to do and a great start to move outside of Windows OS. LibreOffice is perfect, and government officials wont govern better or worst, if their PowerPoint presentations don't have the latest MS fonts....

LibreOffice calc is barely usable for the smallest spreadsheets. Google sheets is better, but comes with its own set of issues and dumb limitations. Excel is at this point in time irreplaceable.

Re: Dutch Parliament: Time to ditch US tech for homegrown options

#137

Post by drpossum »

Telemakhos wrote: post #127
maciejw wrote: post #83

Europe's problem in this area seems to be inability to build a mechanism to realize large, unprofitable projects. It looks like the whole continent operates on thin margins, and has no resources set aside to pursue strategic initiatives. US is building its pile of resources by capitalising on its current advantage, but also by pushing larger and larger parts of society into poverty. Europe is maybe more fair, but ult…

The data business in the US was not developed by “building institutions” through centralized government projects but by private enterprise. There is a fundamental difference in mindset regarding the relative importance of the public and private sectors between the two regions, and I suspect that difference underlies the stark difference between the US and EU in terms of tech companies. The US has Apple, Microsoft, Am…

[flagged]

Re: Dutch Parliament: Time to ditch US tech for homegrown options

#138

Post by scryers_bloom »

Although this isn't foreign related, I started a regional freelance software company to help build websites or software for local government and businesses or other kinds of software/IT help. It sucks to know that there are state funded organizations that just impede any sort of locally homegrown software development. And it made me realize that software is one of the strange fields where competition both feels like its extremely lacking or flourishing, depending on which sect your in.

Re: Dutch Parliament: Time to ditch US tech for homegrown options

#139

Post by bayindirh »

mstipetic wrote: post #111
belter wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dump Office and Teams. Easy to do and a great start to move outside of Windows OS. LibreOffice is perfect, and government officials wont govern better or worst, if their PowerPoint presentations don't have the latest MS fonts....

I’m all for open source but suggesting libre office is perfect is a bit too much for me

LibreOffice works for 99.99% of the cases where Microsoft Office is being used. Moreover, NextCloud offers a free "LibreOffice on the web" capability if you prefer.

Oh, BTW. Nextcloud is also nice. Very nice.

Edit: Looks like Owncloud guys have arrived (just joking, I like them equally).

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