Can Dutch universities do without Microsoft?

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Structural European Tech Weakness & Federalization

  • Commenters see Europe’s failure to build competitive tech platforms in the 2000s as a long-term strategic error, leaving it dependent on US and Chinese firms.
  • Fragmentation (27 states, 27 rulebooks) is blamed for making scaling harder than in the US; some argue “federate or decline,” others strongly resist ceding more sovereignty to Brussels.
  • EU institutions are described as slow, complex, and shaped by an old neoliberal/globalization mindset, yet also praised for preventing US-style executive overreach.

US Cloud Dependence & Legal Sovereignty

  • Core concern: Microsoft, AWS, Google are subject to US law (CLOUD Act, sanctions), so any “sovereign” EU cloud run by them is inherently suspect.
  • AWS/Microsoft “European sovereign cloud” plans are criticized as cosmetic unless there is full legal and operational separation and no US ownership leverage.
  • ICC/Netherlands example is repeatedly cited as a warning that individuals and institutions can be digitally cut off by US political decisions, even if details of that case are disputed.

Why Universities Are Locked In

  • Identity and collaboration are seen as the real lock-in, not Word/Excel themselves: Azure AD/Entra, Exchange/Outlook, Teams, OneDrive/SharePoint underpin auth, storage, calendars, and workflows.
  • Universities once ran their own mail and fileservers; “free” edu bundles from Google/Microsoft during the last decade (especially around COVID) led to mass outsourcing and skill atrophy.
  • Decision-makers and users favor familiarity and convenience; migration risk is career-threatening for administrators and offers little visible upside.

Alternatives & Practical Feasibility

  • A common proposed stack: LibreOffice + Collabora/OnlyOffice + Nextcloud + Matrix/Jitsi + self-hosted email/anti-spam. Technically feasible, especially via shared services (e.g., SURF in NL).
  • Main barriers: coordination (getting 10–20 universities to co-fund), long-term ops (petabyte-scale storage, redundancy, security), and lack of EU-style “big tech” vendors offering one-stop solutions.
  • Some argue unis are better positioned than corporations (existing sysadmin expertise, research grants) and that EU-wide funding could bootstrap open, sovereign platforms.

Security, Quality, and Mission

  • Several admins describe Microsoft 365/Azure as insecure by default and operationally convoluted; others insist it’s still the best option for orgs without large security teams.
  • There is discomfort with public universities effectively serving as training pipelines for Microsoft/Oracle/Cisco ecosystems instead of emphasizing open standards and tooling independence.