4 ms·

> Outside of manufacturing all around me there is talk of ditching Azure, Google and even AWS Lots of talk, but how much action? People are still building thi

> Outside of manufacturing all around me there is talk of ditching Azure, Google and even AWS Lots of talk, but how much action? People are still building things that depend on American cloud, American controlled OSes (especially for mobile), American supplied hardware, American cloud services (especially AI) and the moves away are tiny by contrast.

jacquesm 1y ago
Plenty of action. This has gone way beyond 'mild discomfort but we'll just pretend it is all ok'. The last 6 months have seen a massive change in attitude.
- graemep 1y ago
  some examples of action?
  - frm88 1y ago
    https://windowsforum.com/threads/european-governments-shift-from-microsoft-to-open-source-software-for-digital-sovereignty.370819/ https://windowsforum.com/threads/european-governments-shift-... Directly from the Windows Forum. https://www.slashgear.com/1888658/microsoft-office-alternative-denmark-libreoffice-linux-why-move-important-explained/ https://www.slashgear.com/1888658/microsoft-office-alternati... Government's in Denmark, Germany, Spain (on the state level ) A couple more links for companies, but I trust the above is enough? The trend is definitely there and picking up speed. Edit: a couple of days ago there was a post on HN about SAP spending 20b on cloud https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/04/sap_sovereign_cloud/ https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/04/sap_sovereign_cloud/
    - graemep 1y ago
      So over the last 15 years the solid examples of moves that have been committed to are: 1. Denmark’s Ministry for Digital Affairs 2. Two Danish cities 3. One German state 4. The Italian Ministry of defence 5. One Spanish region They also say French education ministry advised schools to move off the free versions of the "free versions" of MS Office 365 and Google Docs. They do not say anything about how many schools followed the advice, or what they moved to (a paid version of the same? another American supplier?). Not much for a whole continent. There will be a lot of resistance to any change. There will be a lot of people like this making the same arguments made here: https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/13/debate_for_microsoft_in_public_sector/ https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/13/debate_for_microsoft_... Microsoft has successfully had such decisions reversed in the past: https://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/Munich-Plans-to-Ditch-Linux-and-Go-Back-to-Windows https://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/Munich-Plans-to-D...
- stinkbeetle 1y ago
  This is exactly the same as what was being said during the first Trump term though.
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    Yes. But things really are different now. I think there was some expectation of checks and balances kicking in if things went really crazy and they didn't. So the trust factor is in the freezer right now, pretty much all over Europe. Yes, people still trade, yes, there is still traffic back and forth. But it is now because you have to, not because you want to. Just look at the tourism figures for an idea of the current sentiment.
    - stinkbeetle 1y ago
      We were told that things really were different then too. And they were different by definition because they weren't the same, but that is not really evidence of anything. We were promised he colluded with Putin to hack the election and would become a dictator, that WWIII would be started, economy would be ruined, international trade would be stopped, undesirable citizens would be put into camps, etc. He really did not need courts or legislature on your side for that if you can control the military and a sizable portion of the country is on your side too. So that all turned out to be another cry wolf situation. Things are different now too because they are not the same, sure. I don't know that people who got it quite wrong are the ones to trust when it comes to predictions of trading and economics this time around. > Just look at the tourism figures for an idea of the current sentiment. No doubt a lot of people have changed their minds about visiting US due to Trump - "Overseas arrivals fell 3.4% in June compared to a year ago, bringing the YTD decline to 1.2%." But I don't think those kinds of swings are much evidence for larger trade and investment and data sovereignty etc issues. Everybody, EU, UK, China, Japan, India, Australia, well really just about all countries -- have made a lot of noise and care a lot about relying on US tech, having US companies and by extension the US government control their data, etc. This isn't something they've just started to try fixing in 2016 "because Trump", or in 2025 "because this time he means it". It's been much longer than that. With the exception of probably only China, nobody has been able to make a great deal of progress on it.

jacquesm 1y ago

Plenty of action. This has gone way beyond 'mild discomfort but we'll just pretend it is all ok'. The last 6 months have seen a massive change in attitude.

graemep 1y ago
some examples of action?
- frm88 1y ago
  https://windowsforum.com/threads/european-governments-shift-from-microsoft-to-open-source-software-for-digital-sovereignty.370819/ https://windowsforum.com/threads/european-governments-shift-... Directly from the Windows Forum. https://www.slashgear.com/1888658/microsoft-office-alternative-denmark-libreoffice-linux-why-move-important-explained/ https://www.slashgear.com/1888658/microsoft-office-alternati... Government's in Denmark, Germany, Spain (on the state level ) A couple more links for companies, but I trust the above is enough? The trend is definitely there and picking up speed. Edit: a couple of days ago there was a post on HN about SAP spending 20b on cloud https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/04/sap_sovereign_cloud/ https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/04/sap_sovereign_cloud/
  - graemep 1y ago
    So over the last 15 years the solid examples of moves that have been committed to are: 1. Denmark’s Ministry for Digital Affairs 2. Two Danish cities 3. One German state 4. The Italian Ministry of defence 5. One Spanish region They also say French education ministry advised schools to move off the free versions of the "free versions" of MS Office 365 and Google Docs. They do not say anything about how many schools followed the advice, or what they moved to (a paid version of the same? another American supplier?). Not much for a whole continent. There will be a lot of resistance to any change. There will be a lot of people like this making the same arguments made here: https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/13/debate_for_microsoft_in_public_sector/ https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/13/debate_for_microsoft_... Microsoft has successfully had such decisions reversed in the past: https://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/Munich-Plans-to-Ditch-Linux-and-Go-Back-to-Windows https://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/Munich-Plans-to-D...
stinkbeetle 1y ago
This is exactly the same as what was being said during the first Trump term though.
- jacquesm 1y ago
  Yes. But things really are different now. I think there was some expectation of checks and balances kicking in if things went really crazy and they didn't. So the trust factor is in the freezer right now, pretty much all over Europe. Yes, people still trade, yes, there is still traffic back and forth. But it is now because you have to, not because you want to. Just look at the tourism figures for an idea of the current sentiment.
  - stinkbeetle 1y ago
    We were told that things really were different then too. And they were different by definition because they weren't the same, but that is not really evidence of anything. We were promised he colluded with Putin to hack the election and would become a dictator, that WWIII would be started, economy would be ruined, international trade would be stopped, undesirable citizens would be put into camps, etc. He really did not need courts or legislature on your side for that if you can control the military and a sizable portion of the country is on your side too. So that all turned out to be another cry wolf situation. Things are different now too because they are not the same, sure. I don't know that people who got it quite wrong are the ones to trust when it comes to predictions of trading and economics this time around. > Just look at the tourism figures for an idea of the current sentiment. No doubt a lot of people have changed their minds about visiting US due to Trump - "Overseas arrivals fell 3.4% in June compared to a year ago, bringing the YTD decline to 1.2%." But I don't think those kinds of swings are much evidence for larger trade and investment and data sovereignty etc issues. Everybody, EU, UK, China, Japan, India, Australia, well really just about all countries -- have made a lot of noise and care a lot about relying on US tech, having US companies and by extension the US government control their data, etc. This isn't something they've just started to try fixing in 2016 "because Trump", or in 2025 "because this time he means it". It's been much longer than that. With the exception of probably only China, nobody has been able to make a great deal of progress on it.