They are only “weaker” because they are smaller. European cloud services can be just as capable as US ones, it just needs investment to build up the infrastructure.
Too many companies and public institutions in Europe have allowed the US monopolies to get away with their practices here. For example: letting Microsoft bundle so many products into Windows and Office 365 at a loss to build vendor lock in and stifle competition. Letting google push Chrome aggressively to users of other browsers who just want to use their search. Letting Facebook buy Instagram and not regulating the social media monopolies.
These are all choices that reflect the poor state of Europe. We’ve allowed US companies to come in and exploit Europe. That also continues in the EU with companies avoiding tax by basing themselves in Ireland and charging their operations in other countries franchise costs.
Europe tolerated all this because there was an idea that it was balanced out in other ways with the US, and this was what free trade is. Trump has made clear assumptions over all Europes relationship with the US is not equal, and we really need our anti-trust bodies to get back to doing what they used to do to protect European citizens.
Remember when the EU forced Microsoft to give users a choice of web browsers? More recently The EU has done some work on forcing Apple to open it’s appstore / payment system to competition but it’s done next to nothing about Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Windows, Google Search, Google Chrome, or Meta & Twitter/X. I hope European politicians follow their words with actions.
They are only “weaker” because they are smaller. European cloud services can be just as capable as US ones, it just needs investment to build up the infrastructure.
Too many companies and public institutions in Europe have allowed the US monopolies to get away with their practices here. For example: letting Microsoft bundle so many products into Windows and Office 365 at a loss to build vendor lock in and stifle competition. Letting google push Chrome aggressively to users of other browsers who just want to use their search. Letting Facebook buy Instagram and not regulating the social media monopolies.
These are all choices that reflect the poor state of Europe. We’ve allowed US companies to come in and exploit Europe. That also continues in the EU with companies avoiding tax by basing themselves in Ireland and charging their operations in other countries franchise costs.
Europe tolerated all this because there was an idea that it was balanced out in other ways with the US, and this was what free trade is. Trump has made clear assumptions over all Europes relationship with the US is not equal, and we really need our anti-trust bodies to get back to doing what they used to do to protect European citizens.
Remember when the EU forced Microsoft to give users a choice of web browsers? More recently The EU has done some work on forcing Apple to open it’s appstore / payment system to competition but it’s done next to nothing about Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Windows, Google Search, Google Chrome, or Meta & Twitter/X. I hope European politicians follow their words with actions.
Yeah it makes no sense to me. If you are at a scal where you have multiple locations and disaster recovery its pretty much all that is needed.