Austria's Ministry of Economy Has Migrated To a Nextcloud Platform In Shift Away From US Tech

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Even before Azure had a global failure this week, Austria's Ministry of Economy had taken a decisive step toward digital sovereignty. The Ministry achieved this status by migrating 1,200 employees to a Nextcloud-based cloud and collaboration platform hosted on Austrian-based infrastructure. This shift away from proprietary, foreign-owned cloud services, such as Microsoft 365, to an open-source, European-based cloud service aligns with a growing trend among European governments and agencies. They want control over sensitive data and to declare their independence from US-based tech providers.

European companies are encouraging this trend. Many of them have joined forces in the newly created non-profit foundation, the EuroStack Initiative. This foundation's goal is " to organize action, not just talk, around the pillars of the initiative: Buy European, Sell European, Fund European." What's the motive behind these moves away from proprietary tech? Well, in Austria's case, Florian Zinnagl, CISO of the Ministry of Economy, Energy, and Tourism (BMWET), explained, "We carry responsibility for a large amount of sensitive data -- from employees, companies, and citizens. As a public institution, we take this responsibility very seriously. That's why we view it critically to rely on cloud solutions from non-European corporations for processing this information."

Austria's move and motivation echo similar efforts in Germany, Denmark, and other EU states and agencies. The organizations include the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, which abandoned Exchange and Outlook for open-source programs. Other agencies that have taken the same path away from Microsoft include the Austrian military, Danish government organizations, and the French city of Lyon. All of these organizations aim to keep data storage and processing within national or European borders to enhance security, comply with privacy laws such as the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and mitigate risks from potential commercial and foreign government surveillance.

I think we might start seeing

[rsilvergun]

Some actual Linux migrations in order to break the dependency on microsoft. Trump has made America to erratic to trust. So it's not going to be about getting discounts from Microsoft anymore. It's become a matter of national security.

I don't think that will terribly much help us Americans. And long-term I don't think it will help Europe because it's only a matter of time before America invades in order to loot the countries there. That's what all failing empires do.

One of those things. If you're goi

This is likely what Trump wanted

[Anonymous Cward]

It is very possible Trump wants the EU to use EU manufactured products, and wants the US to use US manufactured products and for China to use Chinese products, irrespective of the economic impact, and the perceived loss of control. Even the tariffs are reciprocal with the intent of having countries try to go Juche on internal manufacturing. The prez also recently turned up to the UN and told every country they should be more self-reliant, that they should have strong borders and that they should be thinking

Re: I think we might start seeing

[Anamon]

While it's always been a matter of national security, the big change now is that it's no longer just experts who know that now. People have always raised the issue of how insane it is to have critical services and infrastructure depending on a US service provider. The voices were never heard because nobody would take the worst-case scenarios seriously. In the end, it was still rationally capitalistic enterprise Microsoft/Amazon/Google/Oracle/etc. with money and a reputation to lose, operating in a democrati

Austria!!

[Anonymous Coward]

G'day mate!!!

Re:

[r1348]

The antisemitic Joy Division t-shirt blew my mind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

Well, why would you trust an enemy ...

[RockDoctor]

To store your governmental data.

I'm sure Googazon will be hauled over the coals by @NSA for not adhering to their contracts, and Amagle will respond "Your president did this, we can't physically force people to send us their data - even with your breakable encryption."

What could compel a sovereign power ( a word some Americans use, without understanding it) to store their data with a hostile power?

OK - here's an idea : you, as a government, instruct your "spooks" to send false data, suitably encrypted, for

But MS has to make 30% profit and make line go up

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft will find it increasingly difficult to fund their investment in AI. They were hoping to increase profit margins on everything they are currently doing, with the expectation that they will only expand and not contract. But now american policies are causing others to become self reliant, hurting their own businesses like Microsoft.

I wonder how long

[Big Hairy Gorilla]

I like nextcloud. Community edition. I wonder how long before it goes commercial ... can it stay that way with some serious major customers / users... like Redhat and Ubuntu are as closed an ecosystem as they can make it. That seems to be where NC is headed ...

Re:I wonder how long

[robot5x]

same it's a really good product, and model. But I thought they already were commercial (?), as in you can buy 'enterprise' plans including hosting and support etc. The reassuring thing about these recent moves in Europe is that governments seem to be specifically talking about the value of open source, not simply about moving away from Microsoft. Hopefully that encourages products like nextcloud to just keep doing what they're doing.