German OSB Alliance warns: Microsoft Cloud threatens digital sovereignty

[German]Microsoft is working to force users – especially in enterprise IT – onto subscription models and cloud connectivity. From 2025, many on-premises offerings will be phased out and the compulsion to the cloud will then be de facto. This will be accompanied by a total loss of digital sovereignty. The German Open Source Business Alliance (OSB) therefore urgently pointed out as early as the end of September 2021 that Germany and the EU are taking powerful steps to give up even the last vestige of digital sovereignty.

Microsoft's websites listing the lifecycles showing that many Microsoft products are reaching the end of life in 2025, 2026 or 2027. And it seems, that on-premises solutions are not continued, Microsoft is heading to the cloud and subscription models.

OSB Alliance sees digital sovereignty at risk

The OSB Alliance is sounding the alarm because Microsoft has announced that it will no longer support the company's on-premises software, which has been used by the administration to date, from the end of 2025. Instead of on-premises solutions, only cloud-based deployment models will be offered from that point on.

The inevitable consequence is that the software used by the federal, state and local governments for office work and communication can no longer be provided and operated by the administrations themselves or by their service providers in the future. Henceforth, cloud offerings from Microsoft, which are highly questionable in terms of data protection, would have to be used in its place, according to the OSB.

The reference to "cloud offerings … that are highly questionable in terms of data flows (telemetry) and data protection" is a nice paraphrase, because according to the GDPR, most Microsoft offerings may simply no longer be useaable because of the (telemetry) data transfer and access options of the US administration. The data protection authorities are simply turning a blind eye to this.

In the position paper co-signed by Peter Ganten, Rafael Laguna de la Vera, Adriana Groß, Lothar Becker, Ann Cathrin Riedel, Julia Kloiber and Marina Weisband, the Open Source Business Alliance – Bundesverband für digitale Souveränität e.V. makes clear why this would result in a dependency relationship with dramatic effects on the digital ecosystem in Europe. Some key points from the paper:

• Due to the opaque software code for the administration, independent third parties and civil society, it cannot be ruled out that backdoors will be introduced via the updates and error corrections continuously provided by Microsoft or other providers, which will enable unauthorized access if they are not present a priori anyway.
• The specialized procedures used in the administration must use the proprietary programming interfaces and functions of the Microsoft cloud offerings. Adherence to open standards set by a broad community is no longer possible.
• The monopoly position allows Microsoft to dictate virtually any price it wants. In addition, there is a risk of unilateral termination of the contractual relationship by Microsoft, which would cause unforeseeable consequential costs.
• Dependence on Microsoft may not only require concessions in terms of data protection and data security, but also result in direct dependence on decisions made by American authorities.
• Microsoft can force Europe to accept non-open, proprietary standards set by Microsoft, to which other (EU) states and large parts of the economy might have to align themselves.
• A massive technological dependency manifested in this way has the consequence that substantial public financial resources continuously flow to Microsoft and providers developing exclusively on Microsoft standards, which are permanently withdrawn from the European digitization ecosystem.

Peter Ganten,  CEO of German OSB Alliance, writes: "If politicians allow the existing dependencies of German and European authorities on a single manufacturer to be further cemented, this will have fatal consequences for national digital sovereignty and the performance of the European digital economic area. We are issuing a clear warning that the digital policy future of Europe must not be placed in the hands of a single corporation."

The OSB Alliance has published the document Warum die Entscheidung für eine Microsoft Cloud den Aufbau echter digitaler Souveränität verhindert  (only in German) which draws a frightening picture. Germany's and Europe's public authorities are placing themselves in a frightening dependency on a U.S. vendor, which can then demand any price as a monopolist and dictate its future product policy through dependency. Open source software still offers the possibility that Europe and Germany could become independent in these fields. It only has to be wanted and tackled. It is now becoming clear what a disservice Munich's OB Reiter has done to the cause by shooting down the LiMux project.