France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc. • Hacker News Board

Re: France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc.

#211

Post by toomuchtodo » Mon, Jan 26, 2026, 7:07 PM UTC

znkynz wrote: post #201

toomuchtodo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My health insurance for a family of four in Spain is $2k/year. In the US, it was exceeding $25k/year with premiums, copays, deductibles, etc. While not free, it is accessible. There was a time in my life we had to decide in the middle of the night if we could afford to take one of our children to the ER in the US when they were a newborn. I will never have that feeling in Europe, and that is priceless. Tax me more, I…

That article is just mindblowing. My countries Health Service is far from perfect, but that is insanity.

This is a component of what those who can qualify for some sort of visa are fleeing. The economics are undeniable.

Re: France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc.

#212

Post by omnimus » Mon, Jan 26, 2026, 7:09 PM UTC

traceroute66 wrote: post #145

omnimus wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are fine. Cloud is a commodity. Hetzner and Bunny are pretty great and i am sure there are many more. The problem is when US decides to ban sales of compute hardware to EU (like they do to China). Then it will be clear who's really in power.

> Then it will be clear who's really in power. If China closed the door overnight to the US, it would also be clear who's really in power. The US simply does not have the capacity to replicate the manufacturing domestically. Even if it were possible, "100% Made in the US" would end up costing at least 20–30% more. And the US does not have a plan B. Sure there might be India .... one day....years away.

Oh I agree. China is clearly outplaying everyone. But EU surely doesn't want to replace one leash (US tech stack) with different leash (Chinese tech stack).

I keep wondering though. Is insane amount of compute really that crucial? Aren't most real computing needs served well with not so cutting edge tech? I am 5-10 years behind on most of my machines. Servers we have at work are very modest (and outdated) yet the software these servers power are still valuable. Maybe EU could run on some domestic RISC-V cheapo chips.

Re: France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc.

#213

Post by yodsanklai » Mon, Jan 26, 2026, 7:10 PM UTC

The French Gendarmerie has been running Linux for a while now https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu.

I don't know the details but it seems like a good first step.

Re: France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc.

#214

Post by irusensei » Mon, Jan 26, 2026, 7:11 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #111

harikb wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Products don't necessarily win on merit. Microsoft Teams "won" entirely because it was given away free with Office. Even though it is acceptable these days, it was horrible when it started. There is no way it could have won without unlimited backing from a bigger force. You have to see EU trying these things in the same light.

The EU can also ban access to US products, once EU alternatives are available, for example. "National security" or whatever PR is needed to make the case. I'm unsure the EU could build and require anything worse than Teams, considering the open source landscape for that product category, for example. The primitives exist, scale them up and lock out US companies from the EU market with policy. Recycle the capital inte…

I'm absolutely against banning usage of computer programs and platforms BUT I would rally for getting Teams banned from the face of the earth and applying a law to prevent Microsoft to attempt to create or acquire any kind of communicator for the next 50 years.

Re: France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc.

#215

Post by ddalex » Mon, Jan 26, 2026, 7:11 PM UTC

xiphias2 wrote: post #200

softwaredoug wrote: post #113

Americans fail to appreciate a few things about our economy 1. We have a large homgoneous market where you can build a product and it’s expected it can succeed for hundreds of millions of Americans 2. EU is the easiest second market, and another step change of hundreds of millions of customers in a somewhat unified market 3. there’s not an easy 3rd economy that replaces EUs wealth, population, and comfort with Englis…

There's only one thing they need to replace if they want to show independence: ChatGPT. They had their chance with Mistral and failed spectacularly with just creating anti-AI regulations. As a European I'm happy to use their product (and pay for it), I just ask one tiny little thing from them: build a better model with lower latency.

> build a better model with lower latency.

That's mighty impossible for the european mindset - people here are not so risk-eager as to through hundreds of billions on infrastructure for something that might return a profit.

Re: France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc.

#216

Post by toomuchtodo » Mon, Jan 26, 2026, 7:13 PM UTC

hintymad wrote: post #195

softwaredoug wrote: post #113

Americans fail to appreciate a few things about our economy 1. We have a large homgoneous market where you can build a product and it’s expected it can succeed for hundreds of millions of Americans 2. EU is the easiest second market, and another step change of hundreds of millions of customers in a somewhat unified market 3. there’s not an easy 3rd economy that replaces EUs wealth, population, and comfort with Englis…

In a way, isn't it what the Americans and even the current administration want? We want a strong Europe who is keen on preserving and developing the glorious modern civilization that it created. We want a strong Europe who can build and innovate instead of regulating and fining. In contrast, we certainly don't want see the disastrous joke like Northvolt. We certainly don't want to see the joke that BASF shut down its…

Europe will then redirect the 300B euros it was investing in US treasuries annually to Eurobonds, while redirecting the $300M in purchasing from US companies to EU companies. This is biting the hand that feeds the US.

Europe will buy LNG from Canada instead of the US, and continue to purchase imports from China. I agree though that a strong EU is needed, in part to defend against the US, as well as Russia (until the Russian economy reaches failure). CATL is currently building the largest battery factory in Europe in Spain.

Re: France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc.

#217

Post by gsky » Mon, Jan 26, 2026, 7:14 PM UTC

Every country should ban American social networks and messaging tools ASAP

Re: France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc.

#218

Post by irusensei » Mon, Jan 26, 2026, 7:15 PM UTC

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #29

fcarraldo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ScaleWay and OVH are already filling this gap.

Good luck with OVH. Most EU companies, including this one, offer subpar services compared to their American counterparts.

I think companies should just allocate raw computing and put agnostic stacks on top of it instead of using whatever shinny serverless G-Azurezon Serverless Function Lambda Cloud with NOTREDIS CACHE and LOCAL FLAVOR OF KUBERNETES plus the new OTEL-BUT-INVENTED-HERE monitoring solution.

Re: France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc.

#219

Post by PlatoIsADisease » Mon, Jan 26, 2026, 7:19 PM UTC

softwaredoug wrote: post #113

Americans fail to appreciate a few things about our economy 1. We have a large homgoneous market where you can build a product and it’s expected it can succeed for hundreds of millions of Americans 2. EU is the easiest second market, and another step change of hundreds of millions of customers in a somewhat unified market 3. there’s not an easy 3rd economy that replaces EUs wealth, population, and comfort with Englis…

>2. EU is the easiest second market, and another step change of hundreds of millions of customers in a somewhat unified market

I was making hardware at one point, and it took less than a day to decide that Europe was not getting our product.

The regulations were insane.

I imagine software is significantly easier, but there is a mountain of difference when it comes to electrical and plumbing.

Re: France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc.

#220

Post by aerhardt » Mon, Jan 26, 2026, 7:20 PM UTC

I've been recently researching if I could replace American cloud providers with something like OVH or Hetzner (the latter I occasionally use for VPS) and there is no fucking chance. It's great that 37signals and DHH can do it, and I have no trouble believing they have saved money, but for situations in which I operate, both startup and enterprise environments but where devs are scarce and teams small, it's simply not realistic.