Microsoft blows deadline for special Azure for EU hosters

Microsoft has failed to deliver a special version of Azure for EU cloud providers on time, raising the specter of legal action if it is unable to devise a "commercially equivalent solution" in less than two months' time. The dispute extends back several years. A trade group known as the Cloud Infrastructure Service Providers …

[Groo The Wanderer - A Canuck]

It's high time the EU and other regions of the world did their level-headed best to eliminate the Americans from their markets. Far too much money gets fed to the American cesspool for comfort, and most of it is at all-time high ripoff prices.

Take your cue from some of the cities and nations in the EU: DUMP MICROSOFT ENTIRELY!

[The man with a spanner]

A timetable

How about . . .

* June 2026 the EU organisation implements open international file format (OIFF) standards internaly.

* June 2027 EU only issues documents externaly in OIFF

* June 2028 EU requires all incoming documents to be in OIFF

* June 2029 EU requires internal use of open source office tools. Probably Libre Office, unless there is a better alternative.

* June 2030 EU requires the use of Open Source infrastructure for its workloads.

This is leading from the front and you would expect that member states would follow as success was demonstrated. The EU technical team would become expert in these transformative projects and would be a source of expertise for the member states.

There are 4 responses to this . . .

> Agree

> Agree in principle but time table too aggressive or there is another better idea.

> Disagree - just let the free market do its thing - the market knows best

> Disagree - Why? Are there better solutions

> Ive missed someting - there is another response.

It seems to me that at worst this would focus the MS mind and possibly free us from US tyranny.

[johnsmith1970]

Re: A timetable

Agree but there's too much money and lobbying from M$ and their ilk to sway politicians to stick will (F)OSS long term. It'd take one well placed viral comment around Linux being used for illicit activities like encryption, hacking and dark web to tank any good will. Think of the children.

[CapeCarl]

As an American...I'd say: Run!

As in run away as fast as you can from the US tech behemoths Hoovering (as in vacuum cleaner) all your clicks, threads, and cash!...Way too much "Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated" over the past 2 decades...It would actually be nice to see the US-based obese tech monsters having some viable competition.

Oh and one request: Any EUnonMetaVerse, can we have legs please? /s

Editorial honesty: 1) I have one daughter and multiple grandkids in Germany, 2) My wife once had a child of the current administration's cabinet secretaries in her STEM class at a private school.

...And the fact that we have more Macs at home then people, and that my capstone IT job was being a shepherd among a flock of 5K Linux servers, is only mildly adjacent to my above opinion.

[v13]

M$

> Google had actually offered larger payment to CISPE not to settle the complaint, sources previously told The Reg, but CISPE selected Microsoft's proposal [...]

CISPE should have known better than to trust M$.

[ecofeco]

Re: M$

Maybe it wasn't so much as trust as giving them more rope?

[navarac]

Fines

Any possible fines over this should be so punitive that it actually makes Microsoft's eyes water.

[captain veg]

low-ball

"The Reg warned early in April, sources told us it was inevitable Microsoft would miss the agreed deadline as it had low-balled the engineering work involved."

Seems to me this is simply a dispute over pricing. No engineering required.

-A.

[bsilva66]

Wasn't CISPE supposed to become a stooge for Microsoft?

Seems like microsoft weren't entirely successful in their bid to buy CISPE back in January. Or this is just smoke and mirrors to pretend that CISPE didn't get fully compromised, while still letting microsoft get away with it's predatory tactics.

( https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/21/microsoft_joins_cispe/ )

[rgjnk]

Azure Stack

So was this a proposal to turn Local/HCI into something closer to Hub or just another round of confusing partial product that was sort-of Azure but not really enough to be actually useful?

I've look repeatedly at spending on their on-prem/hosted solutions (in fact have spent) and it's a real mess, especially when you get into costs and lifespan with their ever shifting ideas of what's available & stuff that dies of neglect if not outright killed.

The only constant is their desire to drag you into the morass of Azure-proper.

I'd steer well clear if it wasn't for a couple of things that force it to be used; it's not that their stuff is technically bad, more that (like a couple of other vendors) they're deliberately hostile to the customer & mess you constantly around for their gain, instead of it being a nice simple exchange of product for cash.

[frankvw]

Or not...

"Microsoft has failed to deliver a special version of Azure for EU cloud providers on time..."

That is, of course, assuming they actually made a serious attempt to deliver such a beast in the first place. I remember when for the longest time they continued to insist that they had an ironclad commitment to OS/2, and we know how that suddenly turned out.

So let me go out on a limb here and make a prediction: there will be no such special version. Not now, not ever. Place your bets. :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

SOP in action ... for MS and other Mega-Tech Companies.

Microsoft has obviously calculated that it is cheaper and less disruptive to existing projects to simply let the issue become a 'legal' issue.

This will bounce around between the EU & 'MS Legal Dept' for a while, then slowly move through the courts for a few years.

Much cheaper as the 'can can be kicked' down the road quickly and forgotten about for a few years.

When it does surface again the landscape will have changed and the need can be debated etc.

:)

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought "We Are Doing Something" was the SW1 approach to TOTAL INACTION.....

.....but no......the disease has spread to Brussels!!!

This disease looks like this:

(1) Politician gets in front of media and says "We are doing something"

(2) Meanwhile, the legislation is actually MUCH weaker than claimed.....

(3) ....and (of course) there is NO BUDGET FOR ENFORCEMENT

The idea is simple......in the spin cycle, something else will become "urgent"........

...........and no one will notice that NOTHING HAS BEEN DONE!

Cute, huh?

Now.....why do politicians do this?

One answer has to do with large, repeated applications of fat brown envelopes.

Don't believe me? Think I'm a paranoid old f**t? Well, take a look at one PRIMO example:

(4) ACRES of environmental legislation passed by SW1.

(5) UK rivers overflowing with sewage.

I rest my case!

P.S. Then there's aircraft carriers with propellers falling off.....and with no functioning showers for the crew......I could go on.....

[FirstTangoInParis]

Build your own

As a sysadmin of a small charity that’s just been stiffed by Microsoft by removal of our 365 license grant (with 2 months notice!) there is a quandary to be faced, pretty much in common with the hosting providers.

1. Go to Google : but they could stiff us too.

2. Go Linux / open source : good for long term consistency but needs maintaining what can’t be automated.

Oh to have something that runs and runs and updates itself (like our Turris mesh wifi boxes).

[khjohansen]

Well if we can't use Huawei ...

Why should we turn over sensitive data to a known hostile ... Well, "a foreign power with security concerns not aligned with our own"