Meanwhile in southern Germany.
https://www.heise.de/en/news/Bavaria-wants-to-move-to-Micros...
ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk
151–160 of 229 posts
Re: ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk
#152Rightly so. They should have never used it in the first place. What with the US not recognizing the court it always made very little sense to me that they would rely on the infrastructure components to be supplied by the USA. The latest sanctions are just another step in something that was already in motion from day #1.
The world order at the highest level relies on the nations themselves to behave, especially the largest ones because nobody has the practical power to enforce the decisions of the court in case defendants are in places where the court is not recognized. To USA not recognizing the court has always shown that they don't care about the crimes they commit.
Re: ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk
#153Hei hei, I'm working for the XWiki and CryptPad projects, which are integrated in openDesk. Here are a couple links / infos that can be interesting to understand the context of openDesk. The openDesk project comes initially from an initiative of the Ministry of Interior of Germany in 2021, to build the alternative to Office 365. The project was progressively transferred in 2025 to a state-owned organization, the ZenD…
I find it fascinating to see how much power Germany's "digital sovereignty" initiative has gained. In the beginning, it looked like yet another government thingy that nobody will use. But by now, they must be well above 100k government employees using it daily. Also, in case you missed that: StackIt is the AWS / G Cloud competitor by LIDL: https://www.stackit.de/en/ It's the basebone for their app strategy with 100 m…
Every time this happens Microsoft either threatens to move out or promises to move in with a chunk of their operation. Blackmailing with jobs has been very effective for them.
Re: ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the worse that could happen would be some sanctions on what would then be their in-country US affiliate So what you are saying is the worst that could happen is they lose the entire US market, us based datacenters, and us based employees? I think the question answers itself.
No. It would be run by a US affiliate using the Microsoft brand, paying royalties to a global company in some other jurisdiction.
That's not how laws work
Re: ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk
#155It's actually not called Microsoft 365, but "the Microsoft 365 Copilot app" (not to be confused with Microsoft Copilot (a slop generator with the same logo))
It IS called Microsoft 365
Re: ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk
#156I think the bigger question is why they were using microsoft products in the first place. USA has been very hostile to the ICC under trump, but its not exactly a huge shift, bush was also incredibly hostile. It seems borderline incompetent to use a microsoft cloud offering given the political situation. Not to mention given the type of work they do, seems like hosting stuff off site at all is a bad plan.
No doubt they started using it in the 90s when you bought a copy of software, and Microsoft had no control over your computer.
They were created july 2022. USA started threatening one month later in august.
Re: ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
> a lawyer who was forced off Word Perfect My lawyers at big firms still use it, though they export .doc(x).
But how are they exporting such a modern document format? Holee crap, because it's still being sold an updated! https://www.wordperfect.com/en/ And the suite includes Quattro Pro, for those that are itchin' for that spreadsheet-flavored blast from the past. If I didn't already have the Apple suite on my Mac (which does all I need out of an office suite), I'd spend the $50 for home/student version just for the lulz.
https://www.wordperfect.com/en/product/professional-edition/
Look at those screenshots! It's still a Windows 95 look'n'feel (which some HN users might enjoy).
Re: ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk
#158Re: ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk
#159I think the bigger question is why they were using microsoft products in the first place. USA has been very hostile to the ICC under trump, but its not exactly a huge shift, bush was also incredibly hostile. It seems borderline incompetent to use a microsoft cloud offering given the political situation. Not to mention given the type of work they do, seems like hosting stuff off site at all is a bad plan.
It's basically the "No one gets fired for buying IBM" effect. Microsoft became the default. Everyone was familiar with it, and knew it would work.
It was basically "if the US ever plays this card, all hell will break loose for their IT companies". So ICC and others simply assumed it would not happen.
Re: ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk
#160I think the bigger question is why they were using microsoft products in the first place. USA has been very hostile to the ICC under trump, but its not exactly a huge shift, bush was also incredibly hostile. It seems borderline incompetent to use a microsoft cloud offering given the political situation. Not to mention given the type of work they do, seems like hosting stuff off site at all is a bad plan.
Because libreoffice is so poor.