4 ms·
For most businesses, the cost and difficulty of shifting away from Microsoft outweigh the benefits
by firesteelrain 1y ago
For most businesses, the cost and difficulty of shifting away from Microsoft outweigh the benefits
- marcodiego 1y ago[flagged]
- firesteelrain 1y agoI wasn't aware of any major Trump-era policies that significantly reduced Microsoft’s dominance. Curious what you're referencing?
- slantaclaus 1y agoI also haven't read the article but apparently reading the comments the article has to do with Trump-era policies affecting Microsoft
- firesteelrain 1y agoYeah, I skimmed the article too, but didn’t see much on Trump’s policies directly impacting Microsoft. From what I gather, the bigger challenges for businesses are more about the tech ecosystem Microsoft has built. It's hard to just swap out core services like AD without huge disruptions.
- throwaway_2121 1y ago> Yeah, I skimmed the article too, but didn’t see much on Trump’s policies directly impacting Microsoft. The first paragraph links to an article about how the International Criminal Court ’s chief prosecutor has lost access to his email. This has caused some governments to worry. What if MS was ordered to block access to their software because the US wanted to apply pressure?
- firesteelrain 1y agoAh, that makes sense. I missed that detail on first read Yeah, I can see how events like that raise real concerns for foreign governments relying on US-based infrastructure. Even if Microsoft isn’t directly doing anything aggressive, the potential for state pressure is enough to make countries want more control over their tech stack
- Modified3019 1y agoTrump has been outrageously hostile to our supposed European allies, and is extremely petty, vindictive, and doesn’t give a damn about security or privacy. Furthermore, the checks that would normally provide counter this like congress or the Supreme Court are currently stacked such that he can do horrendous things without consequence. Our media and tech companies are also more than happy to avoid challenging him. Other countries reliant on US based cloud giants are understandably alarmed at his behavior, and it is now a strong possibility that Trump will attempt to use their reliance on our tech companies to wring from them whatever he wants. So the idea of escaping US tech monopolies has become very popular among those paying attention.
- firesteelrain 1y agoThanks for the context! Still seems like, for most businesses, the biggest hurdle is how deeply Microsoft’s services are embedded rather than politics
- thewebguyd 1y agoAnd the hardest part of it often ends up being "We can replace most of Microsoft's apps and services except one (and it's usually Excel) so we might as well just keep everything else." Microsoft is king at "Good enough." It's rarely the best option of anything, but what they do put out is bundled aggressively and is generally "good enough." So, you have a business where a large portion of the user base needs Excel. So you have licensing for that. Sure you can still use other services - you can use Okta instead of EntraID, some other MDM besides InTune, some other EDR besides Defender but once you have 1 product, why would you, when it's significantly cheaper (both in terms of actual cost per user per month and in terms of employing talent that can administer a MS ecosystem) to just go all in with Microsoft. Because of the way Microsoft designed their suite of software and services, the only realistic choice is either all in on Microsoft, or no Microsoft at all, and to fix that we need antitrust action.
- smaudet 1y agoMaybe. Some things go deep, true. However most businesses don't use most of Microsoft products - even the ones that do, the usage of the more complicated products is far more minuscule than imagined by e.g. CFOs, etc. The real thing keeping many "in the fold" as it were would be authentication services. Which are overcomplicated and probably easier to manage without...
- firesteelrain 1y agoRight, it’s stuff like Active Directory and how everything’s tied together. Once you’re using that for auth, it’s really tough to back out without a lot of effort. We’ve looked into FreeIPA and similar options, but honestly, nothing really holds a candle to Active Directory yet.
- AnonymousPlanet 1y agoAD and Domain Servers are like a cancer that will grow metastases around your org, costing user and client cals all over the place, even for every desk phone if you're not careful. The only winning move is never to play their game in the first place.
- firesteelrain 1y agoI'm in a situation where due to staff skillsets and ease of management then GPOs are required. Local GPOs would be insane to manage across thousands of PCs
- thewebguyd 1y agoInTune/MDMs are finally eating away at the need for GPOs for most use cases. Someone already familiar with AD & Group Policy should be able to easily transition to InTune Configuration Policies. MS even has a tool now to import your GPOs. There's still a few that don't have direct equivalents, but the list is growing smaller and smaller.
- JamesBarney 1y agoAnd Microsoft is not unique in following court orders. You have to switch to businesses without an American presence to get around sanctions.
- ArcHound 1y agoThat is the conclusion I've reached in the article. The biggest variable here is whether we start seeing more sanctions enforced by MS. If yes, the risk will become more unbearable.