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Over 170k Nonprofits Lost All Their Data. Is Microsoft to Blame?

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Re: Over 170k Nonprofits Lost All Their Data. Is Microsoft to Blame?

#91

Post by marcus_holmes »

robomc wrote: post #51
docjay wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish they’d just use clear and blunt language, rather than “strongly advise” and “to avoid.” I’m reminded of my bank sending “Important account information” mail that contains advertising OR actual important information, but at like a 20:1 ratio. “YOUR FILES WILL BE DELETED ON {DATE}” seems like it would have solved any ambiguity.

Yeah the subject of the email should be "Action Required To Prevent Data Loss" or something

I would almost certainly delete that as spam, since I receive approximately 34987349873964 emails per minute with that exact subject, all of which are intended to do me harm

Re: Over 170k Nonprofits Lost All Their Data. Is Microsoft to Blame?

#92

Post by PonyoSunshine »

fwipsy wrote: post #90
pschastain wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MS's core product is and always has been Office, specifically Excel. Windows is simply the delivery method

What about Azure? Looks like it takes more revenue than Windows and Office put together.

Azure is Microsoft's attempt to get into the market that Amazon dominates with AWS. Microsoft traditionally was a software company. Microsoft today is a desperate company trying to make money and stay relevant in a world fed up with the bull crap that they have been peddling over the years. Windows could have been so much more and better, but it's now a sold out clown show, just like XBox, just like Office, just like every other thing they have ever made. In the 35+ years I have been around Microsoft products, I have never seen a product where they didn't over promise and under deliver. Frankly, that is their MO: Over promise, under deliver, and move on the moment they have squeezed every dime they can out of a product. They are not an honest company, they never have been.

Re: Over 170k Nonprofits Lost All Their Data. Is Microsoft to Blame?

#93

Post by neuroelectron »

This is no accident. Microsoft knew exactly what they're doing, working through notifying and transitioning 170,000 customers is a lot of work. That work isn't free for Microsoft to provide. Cutting them off probably saved them $billions and many years of expensive, partial service deprecation.

Re: Over 170k Nonprofits Lost All Their Data. Is Microsoft to Blame?

#94

Post by trollbridge »

Meanwhile, other AI firms are thirsty for data - Microsoft could have just slipped in a terms of service change to allow training (it’s sort of in there already), and presto, exabytes of data to train on, with full metadata so you even know if it’s pre-2022.

Re: Over 170k Nonprofits Lost All Their Data. Is Microsoft to Blame?

#95

Post by snayan »

cavem0nkey wrote: post #38

No Microsoft is not to blame. Whoever sells themselves into an all encompassing ecosystem with no exit plan or backup is to blame. It’s absolutely stupid thinking even if it’s the norm these days. The cloud is a convenience at most and an expensive one. You do everything you need to do somewhere else and pray that no one else gets in or you get shot. This is a warning to everyone else. Heed it.

Brother, you are living in a bubble.

This article is about a group of people who are trying to make the world a better place in their own little way. Many of them do not have the technical skillset to understand the potential future problems they have since run into. Many of them, as you acknowledged, probably chose this option for convenience. Is it ideal? No. Is it the reality of the world we live in? Yes.

A bit of empathy goes a long way, doesn't cost you anything. You're not going to win many people over to your cause with this kind of vitriol.

Re: Over 170k Nonprofits Lost All Their Data. Is Microsoft to Blame?

#96

Post by rolandog »

itsamario wrote: post #67
robomc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this context it would presumably mean not casually deleting your customers' data. When people say a company is unserious they almost always mean that they're not thinking about, and taking seriously, the work that their customers do. This seems like a classic example of that.

Unprofessional or irresponsible are more applicable. Some define a standard others set it. This came up when my employer was applying for business continuity insurance

Hopefully they form a class action lawsuit and get the label "criminally negligent"; allegedly.

Re: Over 170k Nonprofits Lost All Their Data. Is Microsoft to Blame?

#97

Post by crooked-v »

rbanffy wrote: post #20
lynndotpy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What happened to Khosla was just one instance of a crisis that has rocked small nonprofit owners across the globe, who allege that Microsoft failed to communicate with them in a substantive manner about the license cancellations and left them unable to prepare their organizations for the future. As they’ve related online, these already resource-strapped nonprofits have lost troves of data, are struggling to continu…

> the official support channels in Microsoft are broken I can say, from first hand experience, the very best cloud providers have support channels that are, at the very least, unpleasant to use.

Apple is decent. The internal processes are opaque, but you can always pretty easily talk to a real person who can and will escalate things to real internal support teams as soon as the CSR scripts no longer apply.

Re: Over 170k Nonprofits Lost All Their Data. Is Microsoft to Blame?

#98

Post by crooked-v »

NordSteve wrote: post #13
pdonis wrote: post #11

Did Microsoft give fair warning of what was going to happen to the data in the cloud that was stored there under these licenses? (I don't have a Slate account so I can't read the full article to see if this is addressed.)

The second paragraph of the email: We strongly advise transitioning your users to a different Microsoft 365 offer for nonprofits, before the subscription is cancelled, to avoid disruption and data loss. Connect now with your current Microsoft partner – or find a partner – to get started. Learn more about what happens to your data and access when your subscription ends. That last sentence links to https://learn.micros…

That's some real nightmarishly passive-aggressive wording. It reads to me like the kind of thing intentionally structured to leave people confused until after the deletions are already done, so then it's too late to argue about the free service being removed.

Re: Over 170k Nonprofits Lost All Their Data. Is Microsoft to Blame?

#99

Post by danpalmer »

NordSteve wrote: post #16

I'm a tenant admin for a non profit. Just looked and I have 8 emails to two different addresses warning me about the transition. None were caught in the Microsoft or Fastmail spam filters.

That's good, but this article explicitly covers this with multiple people citing not receiving any contact.

Re: Over 170k Nonprofits Lost All Their Data. Is Microsoft to Blame?

#100

Post by danpalmer »

pdonis wrote: post #11

Did Microsoft give fair warning of what was going to happen to the data in the cloud that was stored there under these licenses? (I don't have a Slate account so I can't read the full article to see if this is addressed.)

The article cites two people who say they didn't receive fair warning, and one who acted on it to renew their subscription to avoid the data loss who lost everything anyway, so seemingly: no.
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