Could they do it? Deactivate Windows licenses, block Cloud services, access to Office 365 and whatnot?
It would be the biggest self-own in history but apparently the yanks are into that these days.
That, yes, and maybe Microsoft wouldn’t be the one pulling the trigger? I mean, with prism the NSA had access to most internet traffic between the US and the rest of the world, I think. Who knows what mechanisms there are in place, and what this government might decide to do?
Don’t threaten me with a good time!
Microsoft is an Eldritch hydra monstrosity. I think it has become its own civilization. I think it’s so large that it just exists as a self sustaining chaos phenomena. I don’t think the organization can make a decision. One department of thousands makes a decision. And they all jostle about breaking each other’s shit every other day.
Microsoft has the ability to do this if they really wanted to. It would completely destroy their business if they did, though, so they won’t. I mean, who would keep using Microsoft products if the company was willing to just take it away from you at a moment’s notice?
The US government cannot do it so easily. They’d have to order Microsoft to do so. Microsoft would resist and take it to court. The US Court system makes a LOT of really fucked up rulings, but the one thing they do reliably is side with big business. I’m inclined to think that in this hypothetical showdown, the courts would side with Microsoft.
Removed by mod
Yes, IIRC they already did this for Russia.
Can we ask them to turn off all the Xbox services and Activision-Blizzard games in russia as well? Overwatch should be illegal in there anyway because of the “gay propaganda”
Id like russians to start getting banned for the same shit english speaking people do. In english the word “ho” is censored and met with a warning, meanwhile russians can string together 20 slurs and an legitimate, non joke call for genocide and nothing happens. And if you point that out you get called a racist.
Yes, technically they could cause massive disruptions. Not likely they will.
-
They would not get paid.
-
Europe would suddenly have a very good reason to spend billions of euro on funding competitors.
To expand on point 2, Europe is already home to two major competitors to Windows (one headquartered within the EU) as well as competitors in other fields, so they would also have an easier time (as a bloc) than many other places, who don’t have local competitors I nearly as good a position.
What are the competitors?
LibreOffice, OpenOffice compete with the office suite. Google docs is American but is a big competition with the online variant of office.
Linux and to some extent BSD compete with windows. Munich, Germany had a project to switch away from windows in favor of Linux. Or got cancelled after some other guy got elected, I don’t know the details.
There are a dozen cloud storage competitors. But that is something Microsoft is not dominating the market at anyway.
The government won’t care about gaming but the public opinion would turn against the xbox and windows, which would cause Sony and Nintendo to celebrate.
-
Yes but not legally. They are also legally bound to EU laws, which would protect the clients that bpught the software. But! Just like plenty of companies pulled out of Russia, if the US does not care and decides ro enable this behavior then they could do it without too much trouble.
But I doubt this would happen, the EU is a big part of their income, and money is what they care about.
They can send all of their online services like Office 365 and Copilot, as well as sales or registration of Windows very quickly. I wish they would! I’d love to see Linux and Libreoffice take over, and maybe a new European player on the market. That would be a boon for consumers worldwide.
Technically, yes. But it would be the end for Microsoft.
Haven’t used a Microsoft product at home in years, at work though is a very different story. Everything is Microsoft and its horrible and frustrating.
Of course they could. One update could render the system worthless or come with malware that infests systems in the network.
Oh, so just another Patch Tuesday then.
Its has already turned off all mainline windows but the worst one so.
I mean, technically yes, but also no, because Microsoft is a private company, so it would be up to Bill Gates, and Bill Gates wouldn’t do that.
