‘The EU runs on Microsoft’ – and Uncle Sam could turn it off, claims MEP
https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/04/eu_foss_fears/
Posted by signed7
‘The EU runs on Microsoft’ – and Uncle Sam could turn it off, claims MEP
https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/04/eu_foss_fears/
Posted by signed7
27 Comments
they’re right on that.
anything official should be running on a in-EU dev’d linux distro
Do it. Ubuntu is free and much much better.
It is possible. EU should protect itself.
Yup, we’re already prohibited from using Copilot due to “geopolitical issues”
It means it’s working, full steam ahead!!!
Uncle Sam could turn off Microsoft services to the EU, but won’t because there is only one true god in America and that is shareholder value.
It’s kind of funny because, while the EU runs on Microsoft, Microsoft kind of also runs on the EU, don’t they? So the US threatening to cut the wire is a nice wake-up call for the EU to move away from anything the Uncle Sam has to offer. That little dick contest Donnie’s performing will have ugly long-term consequences for the US.
Pleeeease I want to use Linux at work but they do not allow me
They already have shown that they can
The lives of Icc judges and prosecutors involved in the investigations and warrants issued for the actions of Israel in Gaza have become really difficult thanks to us sanctions enforced via us based companies
They lost access to their email and data overnight, impeding their work. Then their day to day financial needs became impossible to carry out.
Same thing in many city governments. When I asked the relevant department head in our city how much we depended on US services and if there was a kind of emergency plan in case the US decided to cut us of he said that we depend quite a lot on it and while they are aware this is actually an issue there is, at the moment, no emergency plan.
Lets hope they do turn it off.
Worked wonders for China when USA forced them to be leaders in many various sections.
Hopefully the Americas will cut off the EU also so we ourselves understand and get self-reliant/sufficient on tech and production.
China is a world leader in many emerging markets, not only green energy but also research and investment in such. The nice Americans paved the way for this. Hopefully we will follow the example China has set.
Cloud Engineer here. Not as easy at it sounds. Because if this we’re plausable (which it isn’t its just rhetoric) allot of US companies are global and are in Europe so it would be direct self harm. Also, a Cloud provider could technically just turn off the electric and it’s back up systems to all the data centres. But that in itself is a complex engineering task. Its more than just cutting cables.
There are fail safes built into every layer, cloud providers spend billions a year just incase a forign actor managed to turn something off.
You need to kick out Microsoft ASAP. The American fascist government wont shut down access to Android, iOS, Meta, Amazon AWS or Microsoft because this is how they spy on the entire planet and foreign gouvernements.
American spyware needs to go faster than this look at how France is moving.
There is a citizens initiative in Finland called ”digital independence”, aiming for critical services to be hosted in ETA and in compliance to EU regulations. Threads promptly banned their Threads account in less than 48 hours.
https://digitaalinenitsenaisyys.fi/en/
Libre office is better and free.
Well, I guess we need EU based cloud(and) services to an enough extent to serve the the needs at least. The problem ist, last time I have heard about it only ones at the door ready to do that was some shady russian tied entities. About “turning off”, no they cannot, internet doesn’t work that way. They ca lock access to their email and services, like jokes on you if you have microsoft email accounts. About Microsoft activation services, I think along the line people, showed quite some skills how to overcome this issue. Imho, every country should be responsible for its own govt. cloud infrastructure for critical services, including OS environment, at least as a fail safe measure.
Thanks to 30 years of politicians corruption (Seehofer Söder prime examplesin Bavaria for instance) many efforts to move away from Microsoft were drowned by politicians not by people actually wanting to do that!
How about instead of trying to “protect the kids” we “protect” the adults from US influence
One more of these. Obviously the propagandists have a quota to fill. If Mearsk could continue operations after not Petya, this will not be the end of the world.
This is the perfect time to switch to Linux Mint, especially considering how awful Windows 11 is. People would be more than willing to switch if it was supported with maybe, let’s say, a tax deduction?
And what will happen after that? Europe will fall? No europe will switch to linux and uncle sam will go broke next year
I have installed Linux already.
And Proton.
EU critically needs their own system, or to migrate to Linux.
Asap. It will not get better in the current state of things.
Doing that would most likely be the end for US tech companies. Sure, they will probably still be used in the US but all other countries would move away from US based tech as soon as alternatives from more trustworthy countries show up.
Yes it will seriously cripple the EU, for a while.
But in the long run it will hurt all US based tech and instead make EU (or non US) tech grow much bigger.
She’s not wrong.
We have emergency drills for heartquake, fire, flood. We should also have one simulating the US shutting down US-based services in Europe, and plan countermeasures.
The EU needs to stop using Amerikkkan software. No, the entire world needs to do that!
It would bankrupt Microsoft in less than a week and damage the American tech sector as a whole as countries all over the world would switch from any American tech firm to local alternatives. That includes Palantir, so Thiel would not allow it.