Over the past year Germany has stated their intention to reduce dependency on providers while increasing their digital sovereignty. Ultimately this is a complex way of explaining they want to keep their private data private, while lowering costs, which is something we can all have a shared interest in. The Register has reported, via BMI, the latest press release from the Germany’s Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer on this.
“To ensure our digital sovereignty, we want to reduce dependencies on individual IT providers, as well as review alternative programs to replace specific software , in close coordination with both countries and the EU .”
In an age in which many companies are shifting to a product as a service coupled with cloud based storage we are increasingly being bombarded with additional costs and security concerns. Throw in items such as telemetry and data collection and the concerns over privacy only increase. Even if it’s a company you trust there still may be issues and additional costs involved with these business models. Well Germany is taking an active stance against these practices by beginning talks with providers to cut back on their dependencies.
PwC Strategy completed a report for BMI identifying providers and pro’s and con’s to the strategies of using such software services. On one hand you can enjoy a kind of all in one approach with much of the IT duties being offsite. This in turn can lead to the customer having a more seamless experience with various different products. On the other are increased costs as more in house solutions are out sourced. It can, of course, lead to potential privacy issues. Microsoft was heavily mentioned in the report to both telemetry and the amount of cloud services being used. The report did identify how the Dutch Ministry worked with Microsoft regarding telemetry. We’ve also heard in the last couple of years of similar tactics in China regarding customized versions of Windows 10. Another path is to switch over to open source as much as possible.
” The Federal Administration will address this development in the coming years, among other things, by demands on the conditions of use of software , but also by the concrete choice of products and suppliers. The use of open source solutions will play an important role in this. “