> Microsoft Chairman and General Counsel Brad Smith dismissed such worries
Every time I read this guy’s name, I remember how he made false statements to the US Congress about the Golden SAML vulnerability by claiming that Microsoft had no knowledge of it when in reality, they had known about it for years and buried it for the sake of making money. Nothing he says is credible.
That said, going with open source solutions is not getting away from US companies, but that is not what is needed here. What is needed is getting away from Microsoft, which cannot be trusted. They have had a pattern of poor security decisions for the sake of making money that has persisted for decades.
By the way, it does not matter how good end users are at security when Microsoft is making decisions that undermine it. For example, the hack of RSA Security occurred by exploiting vulnerabilities in Microsoft software. Those vulnerabilities were there because Microsoft’s management prioritized making money (adding insecure features) over writing secure software. The single best security decision any organization can make is to ban Microsoft software and services.
Much of what you said is true, however the alternatives are quite poor. Believe me, If corporations could find a way to shrink the MS tax, they would be all over it. Corporations have run pilot staropenlibre office programs for decades now. They all fail because it stinks.
To note, their whole ecosystem might be changing, allowing for more flexibility in the Office software space.
There's better online options and many of their needs can be fulfilled by in-house We apps instead of the perennial Access DB or Excel files passed around in mails.
Even the sole reduction of printed documents should have impacted how much is expected from Word or Powerpoint, and make alternatives a lot more viable.
Power users will still need all features in the world, but the rest of the user's are probably less held as hostages as before.