Forget Palantir, Microsoft is the government’s real tech problem

cityam12:35

Microsoft’s dominance in business software is reinforcing its position in cloud MPs are right to warn about the dangers of the public sector’s use of Palantir, but the bigger story is the vice-like ...

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The recommendation to exercise the break clause in the NHS Federated Data Platform contract and publish a fully costed exit plan by the end of 2026 is overdue and correct. Quite frankly, the 240m ministry of defence contract awarded without competitive tender is indefensible – not to mention the data access question and the associated privacy implications, which are much more serious than the political debate has so far reflected.Cross-departmental overreliance on a single US-headquartered company – that includes NHS records, defence data, welfare information and police and justice data to boot – is a huge problem for this government. It creates a consolidated data footprint that sits uncomfortably alongside the legal gateways UK GDPR was specifically designed to enforce. Palantir will point to contractual safeguards but under the US CLOUD Act, American firms can be compelled to hand over data held on foreign soil. The committee is right to dema","collect":0,"end_time":0,"defaultTopTitle":"cityam.com","property":[],"viewcount":null,"language":"en","relate_stocks":{},"translate_title":"忘记Palantir吧，微软才是政府真正的技术问题","themeId":null,"isJumpTheme":false,"ttsUrl":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/8fa5e5541025e08215098ee2664446a2","symbols_score_info":{"MSFY":0.6,"PLTZ":0.6,"PLTD":0.6,"PLTG":0.6,"MSFX":0.6,"PLYY":0.6,"MSFU":0.6,"PLTU":0.6,"PLTR":1.91,"PLTI":0.6,"PTIR":0.6,"PLTA":0.6,"PLTY":0.6,"MSFD":0.6,"MSFW":0.6,"MSFO":0.6,"MSFT":1.96,"MSFL":0.6,"PLTW":0.6,"PLOO":0.6,"PLT":0.6},"content_text":"Microsoft’s dominance in business software is reinforcing its position in cloud  MPs are right to warn about the dangers of the public sector’s use of Palantir, but the bigger story is the vice-like grip Microsoft exerts of government IT systems, says Bill McCluggagePalantir, the Peter Thiel-founded data analytics firm with its murky intelligence community roots, makes for an irresistible villain. So it’s no surprise that the Science, Innovation and Technology (SIT) Committee’s report, “Rewiring the State,” landed with a bang. MPs warning that its “increasing presence in the UK public sector is an unacceptable point of weakness” is the kind of quote that writes its own headline. But while we’re all watching Palantir and the risks to all that citizen-centric data, the bigger story is actually hiding in plain sight on every civil servant’s desktop. Let me be direct. I’ve spent over two decades working on digital transformation in the public sector, including as Director of IT Strategy and Policy in the Cabinet Office between 2009 and 2012. With public sector spend on IT estimated at £21bn and a moratorium on IT projects over £1m under the then coalition government, I watched the Government Digital Service (GDS) take shape under Mike Bracken with genuine optimism. The spend, 15 years on, is estimated to be in the region of £26bn and we’re still publishing reports asking the same questions about the huge sums of money being spent annually on big tech firms. That should give every taxpayer cause for concern. \n\nThe committee is right to flag Palantir. The recommendation to exercise the break clause in the NHS Federated Data Platform contract and publish a fully costed exit plan by the end of 2026 is overdue and correct. Quite frankly, the £240m ministry of defence contract awarded without competitive tender is indefensible – not to mention the data access question and the associated privacy implications, which are much more serious than the political debate has so far reflected. \n\n\n\n\n\n\nFree Thinking - City AM Opinion Newsletter\nGet weekly sparky insight and expert commentary on markets, entrepreneurship and innovation from City AM’s Opinion Editor, delivered every Saturday.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCross-departmental overreliance on a single US-headquartered company – that includes NHS records, defence data, welfare information and police and justice data to boot – is a huge problem for this government. It creates a consolidated data footprint that sits uncomfortably alongside the legal gateways UK GDPR was specifically designed to enforce. Palantir will point to contractual safeguards but under the US CLOUD Act, American firms can be compelled to hand over data held on foreign soil. The committee is right to demand that government publish its contingency plans, because this is a glaring structural vulnerability. The issues highlighted by the SIT committee are entirely legitimate – however Palantir is an easy target. Its inclusion in the report has made headlines precisely because it is a relative newcomer: visible and controversial.Another big tech firm cited in the report – albeit to a much lesser extent – is Microsoft. I would argue that this dependency runs much deeper, such that it has quietly hollowed out government’s ability to make independent technology choices.\n\nMicrosoft’s grip on government  The level of entrenchment is stark. The SIT committee report highlights a £10bn annual government cloud spend and names the March 2026 HMRC contract with Amazon Web Services, a sole bidder for a 10-year, £472m deal as a primary example of market failure. Whilst that number should alarm every reader, at least AWS had to win that contract. Microsoft’s dominance in government largely doesn’t require a tender at all.","kind":"highlight","is_publish_news":true,"is_publish_highlight":false,"is_publish_live":false,"is_publish_wemedia":null,"editions":null,"column":"","sentiment":"0","news_tag":"","news_rank":0,"isVideo":false,"video":null,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":0,"need_auth":false,"need_login_tip":false,"code":"91000000","status":"200"},"commentList":[],"isCommentEnd":true,"newsSizeData":{"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false},"APP":{"userAgent":"Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)","isDev":false,"isTTM":true,"tenantId":"TBGLOBAL","deviceId":"web-server-community-laohu8-v3","version":"4.43.1","shortVersion":"4.43.1","platform":"web","vendor":"web","appName":"ttm","isIOS":false,"isAndroid":false,"isTiger":false,"isTHS":false,"isWeiXin":false,"isWeiXinMini":false,"isWeiBo":false,"isQQ":false,"isBaiduSwan":false,"isBaiduBox":false,"isDingTalk":false,"isToutiao":false,"isOnePlus":false,"isHuaWei":false,"isXiaomi":false,"isXiaomiWebView":false,"isOppo":false,"isVivo":false,"isSamsung":false,"isMobile":false},"href":"/m/news/2642051284","isCrawlerRequest":true}