Microsoft responds to European Cloud Provider feedback with new programs and principles

We will expand Software Assurance to enable customers to use their licenses on any European Cloud Provider delivering services in their own datacenters, similarly to how they can do so on Azure today, whether the hardware is dedicated or multi-tenant. And we continue to expand the work needed to ensure that people can trust the technology they use – through steps like our EU Data Boundary for the Microsoft Cloud – and to help meet ambitious climate goals, as I shared publicly yesterday in Germany. While a large tech company like Microsoft can excel at building a public cloud with global efficiencies, scale, and security, that doesn’t necessarily make us the right provider to manage the specialized IT resources and services of every customer. This is helping government officials develop a more flexible and nuanced approach that balances the sensitivity, and hence security protection, needed for different data categories with opportunities to combine public and private cybersecurity threat detection, innovate faster, and reduce technology costs. In December 2021, we announced a new partnership in Spain with Telefonica Tech, to offer public sector organizations, including defense and companies in regulated environments, customized infrastructure and cloud computing services.