Europe: so enslaved by Microsoft that it makes you Wannacry

[Why is that a problem? Can't they just buy Apple iPads or Google Chrome or something? The question is by no means exaggerated, and it isn’t restricted to Munich. In the whole of Europe, from Finland to Portugal, from Ireland to Greece, information technology (IT) in state administrations is based on programmes of the US software corporation. But because digital systems continue to grow and become ever more important, the states become increasingly more dependent on this one company. The EU commission even conceded that it was “in effective captivity with Microsoft.”

What are the consequences of this “lock-in” to one supplier, as it is called in technical jargon? And how can governments deal with it? The team of journalists from Investigate Europe went on a three-month fact-finding mission, interviewing economists, IT managers, security experts and politicians in 12 European countries, as well as the EU commission and Parliament. The results are disturbing.

The states’ dependence on Microsoft

– creates steadily increasing costs and blocks technical progress in state authorities;

– systematically undermines European procurement and competition law;

– brings with it a stifling political influence from the corporation;

– and puts state IT systems along with the data of their citizens at a high technical and political security risk.

Microsoft was unwilling to answer any of Investigate Europe’s questions about these issues. And public IT administration insiders know why.

“Many state administrations are so dependent on this one supplier that they no longer have a choice about which software to use. That means European states are in danger of losing control over their own IT infrastructure,“ warned computer scientist and lawyer Martin Schallbruch. Until 2016, he was head of the department for information technology and cyber security in the German Federal Ministry of the Interior. Schallbruch is only too familiar with the precarious situation. If this danger is to be averted and a “switch made to independent IT architecture”, it would require “enormous investment”, said the experienced IT manager, who now does research at the Berlin business school ESMT....