Europe had a plan after they learned Merkel’s blackberry contents were going to Fort Meade, but they never enacted it. They planned their own MS Office (and email) replacement. Even got as far as scouting data centre sites and identifying first 40M accounts.
Microsoft suspended the email account of an ICC prosecutor at The Hague
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Re: Microsoft suspended the email account of an ICC prosecutor at The Hague
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
They’re working on it! And they’re making it open source :) Our goal is to offer a privacy-focused, vendor-neutral alternative to platforms like Microsoft Exchange. https://stalw.art/blog/nlnet-grant-collaboration/
Great, but look at this. This is a joke. Let's see ... the EU funded Microsoft to the tune of 234.26 billion USD per year, and have been funding it for 50 years (starting at 0 of course). How much software does the EU expect to get for "between 5000 and 50000 euro"? (one-time). A software engineer in Bangalore can expect to make more than that, even after tax! The EU got INCREDIBLY lucky after Microsoft's rise. Linux…
A $200B grant would be globally unprecedented. The LHC only cost $5B. European countries are market economies, moving more in that direction, and would like a local competitor.
Re: Microsoft suspended the email account of an ICC prosecutor at The Hague
#83Do we know by now whether this was an Office 365 enterprise account or a regular "Hotmail" (Outlook.com) account?
Re: Microsoft suspended the email account of an ICC prosecutor at The Hague
#84>> Casper Klynge, a former Danish and European Union diplomat who worked for Microsoft, said the episode was in many ways the “smoking gun that many Europeans had been looking for.” Damn right. Strong evidence that Europe should look after their own, and not rely on the good old US of A. Written by an Australian who thinks we should do the same down here.
The US continues to burn its soft power capital to defend Israel - this guy was only targeted because of his investigations on Israeli war crimes.
Re: Microsoft suspended the email account of an ICC prosecutor at The Hague
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great, but look at this. This is a joke. Let's see ... the EU funded Microsoft to the tune of 234.26 billion USD per year, and have been funding it for 50 years (starting at 0 of course). How much software does the EU expect to get for "between 5000 and 50000 euro"? (one-time). A software engineer in Bangalore can expect to make more than that, even after tax! The EU got INCREDIBLY lucky after Microsoft's rise. Linux…
A $200B grant would be globally unprecedented. The LHC only cost $5B. European countries are market economies, moving more in that direction, and would like a local competitor.
LHC is funded by more than just the EU.
A 10 million per year grant starting in 2000 would easily have done it. That it's such an amount is entirely, 100%, the EU's own fault. Taking linux and developing it, plus an office suite for it could easily be done for 100x less.
Re: Microsoft suspended the email account of an ICC prosecutor at The Hague
#86In the late 90's Microsoft suspended my email, thepimp@hotmail.com, with no warning or possibility to recover. We should view this latest ICC prosecutor suspension as part of a much larger, more sinister pattern.
Do not know why this personal tragedy is so funny to me. Continue to let that fury burn.
Re: Microsoft suspended the email account of an ICC prosecutor at The Hague
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
People really need to resist the urge to anthropomorphize corporations. Corporate behavior is well-established science at this point. They almost always do what is in their own financial interests. "Feckless" means "lacking initiative or strength of character". Corporations have one character: Making money. Fighting the government over a few user accounts has no short-term or long-term monetary value. It doesn't even…
How's that making money thing going to go when Europe boycotts American tech for several decades?
As far as I know, we haven't seen widescale pull out of Europeans from American Tech companies, alot of talk but not a ton of action. Also, email is so centralized at this point between 365 and GMail, they probably figure there is nowhere to go.
Also, Europe does seem cautious about poking this tiger since Tech is critical industry and it's possible that Europe going "WE ARE DONE!" could prompt massive backlash in tariffs and such.
Re: Microsoft suspended the email account of an ICC prosecutor at The Hague
#88Re: Microsoft suspended the email account of an ICC prosecutor at The Hague
#89They didn't even resist/appeal the order? It is an EO, not a law. Goes to show just how subservient and feckless Microsoft is. Nominative determinism much?
How would fighting it serve Microsoft?
Re: Microsoft suspended the email account of an ICC prosecutor at The Hague
#90Great way to build up European comms business and take revenue from American companies.
Europe already own the US comms network. Nokia and Erricsson are the only real players there.
Qualcomm and Cisco are both American companies that play an enormous role in our telephony and network ecosystem.