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Can Dutch universities do without Microsoft?

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Re: Can Dutch universities do without Microsoft?

#161

Post by athrowaway3z »

YC398739847 wrote: post #99
ta20240528 wrote: post #81

If China can survive — and even start to thrive without ASML and TMSC, then have no doubt that should push come to shove Europe will be able to run a mail server and some office tools. They’re just hedging that American politics will stop licking the car battery.

EU politicians are just too dependent on keeping the status quo of the last decade. The status quo is how they got to their position so they have no incentive to change anything (Starmer, Merz, Marcon, Von der Lyen. Yuck). By the time they finally get the shove they need to rapidly decouple, e.g. when America invades The Hague* to rescue Netanyahu from war crimes charges, it will be when they're already on the edge o…

The EU has - just like the US - a generation of boomer senators and presidents in (voting) power for more than 2 decades at this point.

In the coming decade, that will change.

Hopefully for the better.

Re: Can Dutch universities do without Microsoft?

#162

Post by mr_mitm »

LPisGood wrote: post #88
seanieb wrote: post #21

I spent the past year working for a company that relies heavily on Microsoft for email, productivity tools, and identity management. After that experience, I can say with confidence: never again. The support is astonishingly poor, and user experience feels like an afterthought. More importantly, using Microsoft at scale can leave your organization fundamentally insecure. The obscure, insecure defaults are, at best, d…

What kind of obscure insecure defaults are there?

Check out the Microsoft baseline security guidelines for Windows 11. It's about 400 entries. 400 settings that Microsoft themselves recommend changing from the defaults to achieve a baseline security.

Why does windows 11 show stock values in the task bar by default? Why does it show ads, games and yellow press headlines when you click on it? On the enterprise edition! Xbox services are installed and running by default. Why?

Re: Can Dutch universities do without Microsoft?

#164

Post by amarant »

SunshineTheCat wrote: post #128
amarant wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like this sentiment comes at least partially from American companies(especially Microsoft) habit of buying successful European tech companies, making people believe they're American and not European. There is plenty of European tech success stories, but plenty of them will be mistaken for American ones after Microsoft bought them(and more often than not ruined the product, see Skype for example)

That might be your feeling, but it isn't reality. It comes instead from EU companies not even being in the same galaxy as US ones when it comes to revenue, size, and market impact. There is literally no comparison. It's not like the major leagues compared to the minors, it's like the major leagues compared to tee-ball. https://www.voronoiapp.com/markets/Comparing-the-Largest-Com...

I think we're comparing different things. While you appear to be talking about financial size, I meant in terms of technical capability.

Financially, yes. American companies are obviously larger. How else would they be acquiring all the European companies?

In terms of technical capability, European powerhouses like ASML doesn't even have competitors from America as far as I can tell.

It's entirely possible to argue they don't have competitors at all. For certain categories of products (EUV), they literally don't!

Re: Can Dutch universities do without Microsoft?

#166

Post by venturecruelty »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #55
arethuza wrote: post #23

When I did a 4 year CS degree at a UK university in the 1980s I don't think I touched anything from Microsoft for the entire time I was there!

Students go to university to get an education and obtain employment. All larger employers use Microsoft. Universities would be failing students by not giving them an education on their technologies. Microsoft gives the Universities and their students steep discounts or free software to propagate this.

Companies can pay to train their employees on the software that they use. This is neither the responsibility of the secondary education system nor the Dutch taxpayers.

Re: Can Dutch universities do without Microsoft?

#167

Post by dghlsakjg »

ta20240528 wrote: post #126
YC398739847 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU politicians are just too dependent on keeping the status quo of the last decade. The status quo is how they got to their position so they have no incentive to change anything (Starmer, Merz, Marcon, Von der Lyen. Yuck). By the time they finally get the shove they need to rapidly decouple, e.g. when America invades The Hague* to rescue Netanyahu from war crimes charges, it will be when they're already on the edge o…

The usa couldnt handle Aghanistan. Now they are invading continental Europe? As I said, still licking the car battery.

In fairness, the US has a pretty good record when it comes to invading continental Europe. They already have troops and nukes on the ground in the Netherlands...

And they didn't exactly struggle with the invasion parts of Afghanistan and Iraq, nor in the getting of high status targets in those theaters.

Arguably, the ICJ in the Hague is actually a result of one of those successful deployments of US forces on the continent.

Still not sure what can be done about the car battery ingestion challenges, though.

Re: Can Dutch universities do without Microsoft?

#168

Post by anonymous908213 »

vid wrote: post #150

I completely support not being dependant on a foreign company (or any company at all, standards FTW) and I don't think there should even be a shadow of possibility that an organization like the ICC could be cut off from services due to a foreign directive, but while I have seen it repeated many times, I think the article's opening assertion is not true; https://www.politico.eu/article/microsoft-did-not-cut-servic...…

> I think the article's opening assertion is not true

The link you provided does not appear to contradict the assertion in any way. "We have not cut off services to the ICC" != "We have not cut off services to one specific sanctioned individual who just so happened to coincidentally be on the ICC". The linked article even mentions Microsoft were pressed on the specific subject of the individual rather than the ICC as a whole, but declined to comment, so it looks like a regular case of weasel wording to distort the truth.

Re: Can Dutch universities do without Microsoft?

#169

Post by jack_tripper »

ta20240528 wrote: post #126
YC398739847 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU politicians are just too dependent on keeping the status quo of the last decade. The status quo is how they got to their position so they have no incentive to change anything (Starmer, Merz, Marcon, Von der Lyen. Yuck). By the time they finally get the shove they need to rapidly decouple, e.g. when America invades The Hague* to rescue Netanyahu from war crimes charges, it will be when they're already on the edge o…

The usa couldnt handle Aghanistan. Now they are invading continental Europe? As I said, still licking the car battery.

>The usa couldnt handle Aghanistan

Reddit level argument ignoring the fact that the US's goal there wasn't to win anything since there's nothing of value there, it was to funnel taxpayer money to the military industrial complex for 15 years.

Pretty sure the US could have glassed Afghanistan off the map if they really wanted but probably wouldn't have been very popular decision.

Re: Can Dutch universities do without Microsoft?

#170

Post by throawayonthe »

ta20240528 wrote: post #126
YC398739847 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU politicians are just too dependent on keeping the status quo of the last decade. The status quo is how they got to their position so they have no incentive to change anything (Starmer, Merz, Marcon, Von der Lyen. Yuck). By the time they finally get the shove they need to rapidly decouple, e.g. when America invades The Hague* to rescue Netanyahu from war crimes charges, it will be when they're already on the edge o…

The usa couldnt handle Aghanistan. Now they are invading continental Europe? As I said, still licking the car battery.

i think it's one of those things where how/if they will do it doesn't matter, it's a "we make the rules" thing

if the situation is such that a US -> Netherlands land invasion (with somehow independent armed forces?) is imaginable, you're past the point of the US-ICC legal relations mattering (i'd go so far as to say there's no sovereignty to speak of here :p)

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