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Microsoft Dependency Has Risks

(blog.miloslavhomer.cz)
152 points ArcHound | 5 comments | 25 Jun 25 20:08 UTC | HN request time: 1.08s | source
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jimbobimbo ◴[25 Jun 25 23:29 UTC] No.44382760[source]▶
This applies to any company homed in the US. Not sure why Microsoft is singled out. Why Google, or Amazon, or Apple would oppose demands of the US government?
replies(1): >>44384033 #
1. bee_rider ◴[26 Jun 25 03:50 UTC] No.44384033[source]▶
I suspect it was prompted by the specific story about Microsoft blocking that mailbox. So, that is probably why they were “singled out.”
replies(1): >>44384329 #
2. ArcHound ◴[26 Jun 25 05:04 UTC] No.44384329[source]▶
Hello, author here - yes exactly. And also I don't think companies depend that completely on e.g. AWS
replies(1): >>44384423 #
3. not_a_bot_4sho ◴[26 Jun 25 05:27 UTC] No.44384423[source]▶
Maybe that's a good correction or follow up article to consider. These concerns aren't specific to Microsoft in any way. They apply to all tech companies that wish to operate within the United States.
replies(1): >>44384790 #
4. ArcHound ◴[26 Jun 25 06:43 UTC] No.44384790{3}[source]▶
It is a good point and a weaker spot of the article.

First of all, I now cover MS since this incident made headlines. If you are aware of any such incident from the other providers, I am interested.

Another argument is that more companies depend on MS more. Even in high-tech startups and scaleups you'll find traces of Win machines, AD and Office. On the other hand, there are plenty of companies that don't have AWS deployments at all.

replies(1): >>44385658 #
5. noirscape ◴[26 Jun 25 09:27 UTC] No.44385658{4}[source]▶
Another thing worth noting is that out of GAFAM, Microsoft is the only one that really has vertical business integration that's worth anything, which is why they're the default for so many companies.

AWS is just a hyperscaler, they don't do the full business stack outside that. Google has a full business stack (read: office tools, email, hyperscaling) as an option, but the experience is miserable because Google constantly deprecates and changes things on a dime, which is why most people avoid them. Killedbygoogle stuff doesn't just apply to their non-paying customers, it applies to their paying customers as well. The moment you try to build anything outside of Gmail or Google Docs, you're subject to their whims and depreciation policies. (Case in point; Google has been sending me scare mails that they're going to kill an OAuth service I set up ages ago because it had no logins for 6 months. They just randomly decided it and gave me a month to deal with it. Their solution isn't just "hey, are you still active" - I am, that's easy to see - it's "just do a login and make sure you do a login every 6 months". If it was just a checkbox in their admin panel, I'd probably have done it without a second thought, but I really cba to figure out what the OAuth service was for, so I guess that OAuth service is gonna bite it now. Probably a selfhosted git forge or something that offered easy Google logins?)

Apple has everything except for hyperscaling, but it's all aimed at normal users, not corporations; I'm pretty sure they don't even have a business version of iCloud? The closest is that they offer MDM and bulk buying individual plans afaik. (Facebook isn't in this industry at all.)

Microsoft is the only one who offers a full kit and the promise that they won't pull the rug out under you. They're also the only one that really tries to take legal compliance and depreciation timelines/upgrade paths seriously. (AWS and Google just pass it off onto the customer with a "figure it out", while MS has loads of infrastructure for both of these.)

It's a hard business to replace if Microsoft goes bad with O365/Azure.