> 74% of Europe’s publicly listed companies rely on US-based tech like Google and Microsoft.
Only 74%?
That feels wrong.
I don’t know a single company off the top of my head that wouldn’t suffer serious damage if you null-routed Google and Microsoft’s servers.
Excel rules the world, and even if it didn’t: nobody is running libreoffice on linux professionally, at least not that I am aware of- and hosting mail? Conventional wisdom is that you should outsource that: I don’t seriously believe that people would outsource mail and not go with Google/Microsoft and get a productivity suite “for free”.
kinow · 56m ago
I think Microsoft servers include GitHub? If so, that'd have a huge negative impact on research and academia in EU, as well as software development (even some web pages using JSresources from GitHub pages directly).
rich_sasha · 1h ago
I worked for two companies who ran two separate stacks. One was all Windows and was a glorified email / Excel thing for talking to clients. All the business logic was on a separate network and was all Linux.
If Windows pulled the plug, it would be a major PITA but no more.
dismalaf · 52m ago
> Excel rules the world, and even if it didn’t: nobody is running libreoffice on linux professionally, at least not that I am aware of- and hosting mail?
It has remarkable stickiness but the replacement for Excel isn't another spreadsheet, it's programming + databases. SAP and other custom business software are pretty big especially in large organizations. Word is pretty replaceable, as is the rest of MS Office, especially if you have a custom solution instead of relying on Excel. Self-hosting email is definitely a thing for massive corporations. And don't forget 2/3 of the big Linux vendors are European.
74% tracks. Lots do depend on MS and Google solutions, but enough don't.
gbalduzzi · 5m ago
You can replace excel with programming and a DB only up to a certain point.
The advantage of excel is that any office worker can perform data manipulation there. It can't be replaced for una-tantum operations on data, because it isn't practical to do custom implementations every time you need something.
The alternative is to teach programming to every office worker and give them access to the db. Not sure it's a good idea
edg5000 · 53m ago
I agree with the premise of the article. It really bothered me when I realised I couldn't delete my business listing Google Maps, only set it to "permanently closed". And my bank, my countries' largest, one year ago dropped NFC in favour of Google Pay. Not to mention the Google popups that seem to appear on what seems every website (how did the manage this?!).
Personally I've moved to Zoho for mail and use Ubuntu with a rsync/zfs based backup solution. I'm not logged in to Google but I do use Google Search. On my phone I use a separate Google account specially for the phone, and I use F Droid, except for my bank, which only distributes their app through Google Play.
Why do you think the EU is trying to bully (ineffectively) US tech companies? I don't think bullying US companies is the solution. More embracing of Linux would help a lot. Banks need to behave; making Google Play store a requirement for banking should not be allowed by the authorities, since banks play a special role. Then there is search and maps. Something should be done about that as well. Maybe something like an EU-based perplexity/anthropic competitor would be great.
hulitu · 42m ago
> Why do you think the EU is trying to bully (ineffectively) US tech companies?
Because this increases lobby spending. Win-win.
dismalaf · 46m ago
> Maybe something like an EU-based perplexity/anthropic competitor would be great.
Mistral?
betaby · 2h ago
Somewhere in 2005-2010 mail was declared for some reason a hard problem and outsourced to Microsoft and Google. The rest if the history.
smnrchrds · 12m ago
My alma mater moved from self-hosting email to Microsoft after a major data breach. Keeping high-value internet-connected things secure is indeed hard.
esafak · 2h ago
All apps simply moved to the cloud. It was not just email. Let somebody else worry about it.
hulitu · 40m ago
> mail was declared for some reason a hard problem and outsourced to Microsoft and Google
lobby and corruption. But i repeat myself.
vachina · 1h ago
You need talent to make tech that people want to use. Europe does not have that talent pool nor do they actively retain or attract such talents.
Also them being fully subscribed to capitalism: let other people solve my problems.
throw_m239339 · 43m ago
The EU has plenty of talent, Most startups in the EU simply do not have access to the Venture capital pool that exists in USA.
enaaem · 22m ago
Indeed. Europe lacks a unified capital market and contrary to popular belief, you actually need more EU regulations to make that happen.
wkat4242 · 1h ago
We have plenty of talent. And we don't care as much about money. I chose to move to a lower income country within the EU just because I like life there better. I would never move to the US. In fact I wouldn't even consider visiting, even if my work asks me to.
The reason tech isn't so big here is that there's more regulation and less loose capital. Both aren't bad things IMO. Venture capital is pure gambling in the US. We don't subscribe to the American unrestricted capitalism here (well except for the UK and Netherlands which are heavily influenced by America)
edg5000 · 1h ago
Never heard about NL and UK having US-like venture capital situations. I always hear complaints that it's harder to raise in the EU. I've never heard NL and UK meantioned as an exception before. I understand the close US ties, but can you elaborate more on the venture capital thing?
abrahms · 37m ago
If you recall that "venture capital" was literally about financing ships in the 16-1700s.. it would make sense that NL & UK, both massive naval powers, would have some experience and a culture around VC.
burnerthrow008 · 43m ago
The Dutch invented modern capital markets, so it tracks that they might be more US-like in that regard.
LAC-Tech · 34m ago
I mean the British invented railways, doesn't mean they have a good train system in 2025.
dingi · 10m ago
Ah yes, the EU. Always first in line to regulate the pixel spacing in cookie banners, but when it comes to actual tech sovereignty or defense, it's "please, Uncle Sam, save us!" Peak performative independence.
bigyabai · 2h ago
Wait until they find out whose market Taiwan rules.
iknowstuff · 2h ago
> Big Tech companies dominate, not because they’re better, but because they have the first mover’s advantage
Uuuh says who? I think they dominate because they are in fact better for business for one reason or another.
esseph · 1h ago
Being good at other things can have them generate enough money to blow trying to be good at a $NewThing that smol players only doing $OneThing can't hope to match.
unethical_ban · 1h ago
Google drive is awful, completely atrocious to navigate and reason about.
SllX · 39m ago
People aren't using Google Drive for the Drive per se or the crappy online file system UI, they're there for the apps: Docs & Sheets are the killer apps: good enough as a word processor & spreadsheet combo for any basic tasks, real-time collaboration that is still first-class and maybe unmatched (or at least the closest matches I can think of are still American vendors), and plenty of people are educated in their use, especially anybody who went to school any time after 2008. Also you know, Gmail: still a great webmail service, and part of Google Workspace too.
satvikpendem · 9m ago
I store a lot of things in Google Drive, works just fine for that purpose.
iknowstuff · 1h ago
Cool but GCP or AWS is overall running circles around OVHCloud.
GSuite and O365 are better for businesses than uhhh… what is the european equivalent even? Tutanota and protonmail + libreoffice?
Only 74%?
That feels wrong.
I don’t know a single company off the top of my head that wouldn’t suffer serious damage if you null-routed Google and Microsoft’s servers.
Excel rules the world, and even if it didn’t: nobody is running libreoffice on linux professionally, at least not that I am aware of- and hosting mail? Conventional wisdom is that you should outsource that: I don’t seriously believe that people would outsource mail and not go with Google/Microsoft and get a productivity suite “for free”.
If Windows pulled the plug, it would be a major PITA but no more.
It has remarkable stickiness but the replacement for Excel isn't another spreadsheet, it's programming + databases. SAP and other custom business software are pretty big especially in large organizations. Word is pretty replaceable, as is the rest of MS Office, especially if you have a custom solution instead of relying on Excel. Self-hosting email is definitely a thing for massive corporations. And don't forget 2/3 of the big Linux vendors are European.
74% tracks. Lots do depend on MS and Google solutions, but enough don't.
The advantage of excel is that any office worker can perform data manipulation there. It can't be replaced for una-tantum operations on data, because it isn't practical to do custom implementations every time you need something.
The alternative is to teach programming to every office worker and give them access to the db. Not sure it's a good idea
Personally I've moved to Zoho for mail and use Ubuntu with a rsync/zfs based backup solution. I'm not logged in to Google but I do use Google Search. On my phone I use a separate Google account specially for the phone, and I use F Droid, except for my bank, which only distributes their app through Google Play.
Why do you think the EU is trying to bully (ineffectively) US tech companies? I don't think bullying US companies is the solution. More embracing of Linux would help a lot. Banks need to behave; making Google Play store a requirement for banking should not be allowed by the authorities, since banks play a special role. Then there is search and maps. Something should be done about that as well. Maybe something like an EU-based perplexity/anthropic competitor would be great.
Because this increases lobby spending. Win-win.
Mistral?
lobby and corruption. But i repeat myself.
Also them being fully subscribed to capitalism: let other people solve my problems.
The reason tech isn't so big here is that there's more regulation and less loose capital. Both aren't bad things IMO. Venture capital is pure gambling in the US. We don't subscribe to the American unrestricted capitalism here (well except for the UK and Netherlands which are heavily influenced by America)
Uuuh says who? I think they dominate because they are in fact better for business for one reason or another.
GSuite and O365 are better for businesses than uhhh… what is the european equivalent even? Tutanota and protonmail + libreoffice?