Opinion: A Microsoft Exit strategy isn’t just a good idea, it’s vital. It must go a long way beyond a farewell to Redmond

cross-posted from: https://lemmings.world/post/31757034

In any case, Microsoft is so deeply entrenched in state digital infrastructure that it seems a practical impossibility to do anything about it. The company has a good 20 years’ lead on its competition in bending the ears and getting its feet under the desktops of enterprise and state decision makers. While the UK government has had spasms of promoting open source — most recently in 2017 — these have seen little enthusiasm and less adoption. As SODGR notes, UK state IT lacks co-ordination, leadership, funding, talent and executive influence. 55 percent of personnel budget goes on outside contractors, analysts and consultants rather than full-time staff…

This might seem hyperbole, but the facts are indisputable. The US is not trustworthy - Trump’s tariffs break existing World Trade Organization-governed treaties, a cornerstone of international regulation. Likewise, Trump supports the removal of regulatory or legal barriers to AI development, so what would happen if the AI lobby asked for access to national data from outside the US? SODGR is silent on this, because it seemed fantastical even six months ago. It doesn’t seem fantastical now.

  • magnetosphere@fedia.io
    491·
    4 days ago

    As an American, I’m astonished to see how reliant upon us foreign governments had allowed themselves to become. Nobody noticed that this constituted a major security threat? I’m very sorry that current American regime is what it took, but at least it’s not all bad. This is a wake-up call for the U.K. and all of Europe.

    • Phoenixz@lemmy.caEnglish
      2·
      2 days ago

      I’ve been telling this to people for years and for years I got laughed at as if I was a tinfoil hat guy

      Now people come to me with “did you know this??? Why didn’t you tell me this?” and all I can do is blink incessantly to not strangle them right there and then

    • qweertz (they/she)@programming.devEnglish
      3·
      2 days ago

      The USA has been the “big brother” for pretty much all of NATO to listen to since the Marshall plan…

      Just look how the EU cowed to your gov’s tarif demands recently.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.ukEnglish
      221·
      4 days ago

      The extremists have been in charge of the UK for a long time and they have walked in lockstep with the republicans so it’s not that surprising they allowed such a stupid state of affairs to continue. They don’t actually care about the country that they claim to represent, they were simply interested in how it could benefit them.

      All Microsoft had to do was throw them a few incentives.