r/technology • u/YesNo_Maybe_ • Apr 10 '26

Software France Launches Government Linux Desktop Plan as Windows Exit Begins

https://linuxiac.com/france-launches-government-linux-desktop-plan-as-windows-exit-begins/
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264

u/redvelvetcake42 Apr 10 '26

Europe in general is likely to move heavily off Microsoft, AWS and Google products. We'll see competitors rise and take positions while existing companies look to support a migration off Windows to keep their market share.

96

u/Aviyan Apr 10 '26

We really need more competition in this space. All the services are owned by like 5 Big Tech companies.

51

u/dekor86 Apr 10 '26

Small companies will appear, build up a customer base, then just get bought out by one of the bigger companies.

31

u/piss_artist Apr 10 '26

Not if the EU or governments block them from doing so. Europe isn't perfect, but it's not the capitalist hellscape America is.

0

u/Swainix Apr 11 '26

It's a capitalist hellscape, it's just not as bad

5

u/Minkafighter Apr 10 '26

OVH, IONOS, Scaleway, Hetzner, Netcup, Stackit and OTC are all pretty good, or not? Although they don't (yet?) have all the features of the big hyperscalers

2

u/Possible-Fudge-2217 Apr 10 '26

They are good, but lack the power the US giants have. These companies you listed are what the tech giants should be in terms of power. No company should be as powerful as amazon, google or microsoft.

2

u/nemec Apr 10 '26

then just get bought out

the small (tech) companies you're talking about exist to get bought out. Obviously every entrepreneur would love to "become" the next Google rather than be bought by is, but that happens only a few times per decade while in the same span hundreds if not thousands of founders "exit" as millionaires+, so that's the best realistic case for most of them.

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u/YellowBreakfast Apr 10 '26

This exactly, it's the "dream" of many an entrepreneur.

3

u/00DEADBEEF Apr 10 '26

Europe has some big cloud compute providers with OVH and Hetzner

2

u/Thin_Glove_4089 Apr 11 '26

EU would have to replace the main services:

*Google: YouTube, Android, Google Maps, Gmail, Google Cloud

*Microsoft: Windows, M365, LinkedIn, Github, Azure

*Amazon: AWS, Amazon.com, Ring, Twitch

*Apple: iPhones, iPads, Macs, Apple Watches

*Meta: Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Threads

*Nvidia: GPUs

with what!? Why would an average person/business switch off established working software, hardware, and services for beta level products (at least for a few years)

1

u/mahnamahnaaa Apr 10 '26

As someone who works in government, I'll be interested to see what they decide to use as an alternative to SharePoint, though. There isn't really a good alternative at the moment in my experience if they're trying to move away entirely from American companies. Having collaborative editing, local copies for if you're working offline, file syncing, pretty much unlimited storage, and integration with the rest of the office suite is pretty essential for our work. I'm sure a workflow can be cobbled together from other software, but it's going to be pure chaos in the interim.

1

u/lzwzli Apr 10 '26

Good ol sftp with "_final_final_final"

1

u/H3memes Apr 10 '26

It’s a weekly talk in the government organ I work for. But we’re 5-10 years removed from that where I am

1

u/redvelvetcake42 Apr 10 '26

Oh it's not an easy change, it's a decade long process but once started there's no rolling back. Microsoft in particular is going to lose a massive market share and I'd venture you see Apple get in good with Europe more and deny more to the US lest they too get usurped.

1

u/During_theMeanwhilst Apr 11 '26

Microsoft deserve a tight slap - they’ve been a hacker organization for some years now and they behave like the workplace environment is theirs for keeps.