Why has Microsoft recently been so keen to play nicely and comply with all of the EU’s requests on antitrust and privacy?
This week the company began rolling out its “browser ballot screen” which allows European Windows users to chose which internet browser they would like to have on their computer. It marks – almost – the end of Microsoft’s long-running antitrust battle with Brussels, although the company will still be under the Commission’s scrutiny for a while to see how well the browser choice scheme works.
Microsoft also recently announced that it was cutting the time it retains data from searches on its Bing search engine to six months, in line with what the EU has recommended.
Jean-Philippe Courtois, president of Microsoft’s International operations, recently told the Financial Times, he wanted to help the EU on policy issues related to cloud computing, and to “earn the respect of governments in Europe, one by one”.
The reason for this sudden interest in image and respect, is that Microsoft is making a big play to get European governments to use the company’s cloud computing services. The company has invested in a $500m data centre in Dublin, which it wants to fill up, and the public sector in Europe is a huge market, in some cases accounting for up to 40 per cent of GDP. Governments have always been a big part of Microsoft’s business, with local and national bodies taking huge contracts for Windows and Office suite licences. Now that the world is migrating away from those sorts of PC-based packages, Microsoft wants to make sure it can steer the public sector to migrate to its own brand of cloud computing.
Last month the company launched a cloud offering for the US government, with added security and privacy features. Presumably something similar will be offered to European lawmakers. Microsoft has a dedicated briefing centre in Brussels for government officials where it has been busily hosting delegations over the last few months.
Given that every European government will be looking for cost savings in the next few years, it’s a good time to be talking about doing away with in-house servers and IT staff and moving to the cloud. But there are huge barriers too. In some countries, such as Germany, Austria and Switzerland, data cannot be hosted outside of the geographical boundaries of the country. Microsoft’s Dublin data centre will not do in these cases. Everywhere, security over data is a big concern. Microsoft needs to prove that it can be trusted to handle important public records and data about millions of European citizens. Dotting all the I’s and crossing all the T’s on its antitrust and privacy issues will help it build credibility.
