Labeling all of Microsoft as banned is really constraining your technology options. This is a gigantic organization with a very diverse set of people in it.

There aren't many things like .NET, MSSQL and Visual Studio out there. The debugger experience in VS is the holy grail if you have super nasty real world technology situations. There's a reason every AAA game engine depends on it in some way.

Azure and Windows are where things start to get bad with Microsoft.

Not ony is this a single point of failure but it's one they've no control over whatsoever. Same goes for Google/Youtube etc. It's as risky as flying a passenger jet with only one engine.

What are they thinking, why are they prepared to risk everything?

It boggles my mind.

There was a recent incident where Microsoft somehow allegedly blocked a mailbox of a sanctioned individual. Any organization highly depending on MS products that might come into the crosshair should ask - can this happen to me? What would be the cost? How much I invest into prevention of this scenario? In this article I try to get the facts straight and use a return on security investment calculation to try and judge this situation in a rational way. Let’s grab our tinfoil hats and find out if it’ll be fine.

for people who didn't RTA

Make your technology fungible and risks disappear.

There's just no real alternative for businesses, as most use AD, Teams, Outlook/Exchange and couple others.

Such risks will have to be factored in now.

Can you even even tell what network stack got you this packet?

How about the protocols that got it from the network to your screen?

How about the quantum mechanics of the phosphors that pushed out the photons?

There are certainly techno-luddites/visionaries who are running their own email servers, but it's a pretty hostile environment for personal email servers. Ignoring the spam, just getting the existing big boys to trust you can be humiliating exercise in futility.

Can I get by without Excel? Sure. Google Sheets? Sure. No spreadsheet at all? Gonna be hard.

[1] https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/6468

[2] https://codeberg.org/forgejo-contrib/federation/src/branch/m...

1. Most, even quite big organisations, do not have the complexities of operating at the scale of MS services.

2. I have no idea how efficient MS are. maybe they are highly efficient, but I know enough big businesses are inefficient that it is not a given.

The Trump politics are, for a lack of a better publishable word, unpredictable.

That's one of his most powerful weapons. Like with terrorism, nobody knows who or what is going to be next on the executioner's block, and thus nobody can safeguard against it except cut all ties with the U.S. if you're lucky enough to be outside.