- Estonia Doesn’t Plan to Ditch Big American Tech Companies, But Will Do If Necessary
- 20% of the costs of each government workstation goes to Microsoft
- Migrating to a European alternative is a bigger job than it seems
Estonia’s State IT Center (RIT) appears to be the latest European organization to move away from American tech giants in favor of supporting local alternatives.
While RIT says it currently has no plans to completely abandon Microsoft, Google or Amazon, preparations to find a suitable alternative suggest it could be preparing to migrate amid rising geopolitical tensions.
Director Ergo Tars also noted that a pan-European decision to block US technology products from federal agencies could force them to rely on European technology, hence Estonia’s proactive preparation.
Estonia prepares to move away from Microsoft, Google and Amazon
Despite stating that the country’s government has no plans to ditch Microsoft imminently, RIT does emphasize the costs involved in using Microsoft services.
Considering that a government agency workstation costs 2,000 euros per user per year, about a fifth (400 euros) of that amount goes directly to Microsoft, which for a fleet of 15,000 workstations, is equivalent to about 6 million euros per year.
But moving away isn’t just about finding another suitable platform and cutting costs: established user familiarity would be challenged, and a large-scale cloud migration could end up costing more than paying Microsoft’s higher prices just to make the transition effective.
Tars also criticized fully cloud services that can be affected by outages and downtime, stating that there is still a need for hybrid and on-premises solutions to work together to ensure full-time operation.
But even if Estonia is only preparing for future changes and does not plan to completely migrate from Microsoft, it will not be the only government exploring European alternatives. The German state of Schleswig-Holstein confirmed it would end Microsoft software deals, France’s Lyon confirmed a shift of Microsoft software to open source alternatives, and Switzerland even warned of American SaaS companies’ responsibilities to the US government, pointing to adequate data security.
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