The article yesterday questioned how soon it would be before they announced German data centres, and we only had to wait a day. With the addition of two new data centres in the UK, Microsoft can offer its cloud applications such as Office 365 and Azure to UK companies and keep their data in UK jurisdiction. “Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every individual on the planet to achieve more”, said Satya Nadella, chief executive officer, Microsoft.
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The new data trustee model means that Microsoft will not be able to access customer data stored in those centers without the express permission of the trustee.
T-Systems, an independent subsidiary of German telco incumbent Deutsche Telekom, will act as a data trustee under the new system.
The development of the new data centers responds to growing concerns about the data security of European customers of USA companies operating in Europe. An ongoing legal battle between Microsoft and a NY court exemplifies the debate, with the USA authorities demanding access to the emails of an American citizen stored in Ireland and Microsoft refusing to hand over the data. “It now enables us and our customers to scale and to successfully implement new business models even broader”, said Dr Arthur Kaindl, a Siemens Healthcare spokesperson for Microsoft. But this move on the part of Microsoft isn’t so much to assuage the government’s fears as it is to encourage European businesses to store their data with the company – something that is increasingly hard for USA storage companies to convince European businesses it is safe to do. CEO Satya Nadella on Tuesday announced plans to offer commercial cloud services from the UK.
Microsoft said 83% of German businesses expect their cloud provider to operate data centers in Germany, according to a study by German business group Bitkom.
Experts consulted by the Financial Times suggested that Microsoft’s move may make negotiations around the so-called Safe Harbor 2.0 more hard. With Amazon and Microsoft’s recent efforts of having data centres in the United Kingdom, this would dramatically save money by outsourcing the governments data to Microsoft and Amazon. With no broad deal, companies will likely need to interface with each of the 28 European Union member states and their respective Data Protection Authorities and laws in order to do business. Dynamics CRM, meanwhile, is the company’s customer relationship management product, which Microsoft offers from the cloud or on-premises or through a hybrid deployment.
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“All customer data will remain exclusively in Germany”, Deutsche Telekom said, adding that the service will also be available to European clients outside Germany.
