Europe in the cloud crisis: Anexia is fighting for digital freedom!

Europe in the cloud crisis: Anexia is fighting for digital freedom!

The Austrian cloud provider Anexia focuses on a dramatic examination of the US technology group Broadcom. The CEO of Anexia, Alexander Windbichler, reported that the company was blackmailed by the multimillion dollar group. Broadcom, the eleventh largest group worldwide, took over the decisive software company VMware and presented anexia with massive challenges. Two days before Christmas 2023, Broadcom terminated long -term contracts and increased the prices for new products by up to twelve. This procedure would have pushed anexia and its customers offside, with drastic cost increases of several million euros per year, as Windbichler emphasized to the Kleine Zeitung.

But Anexia defended itself against this coercion. An emergency team was founded and the entire organization mobilized to develop a solution based on so-called “open source” technology. In an extremely intensive race against time, around 400 employees worked hard to reject Broadcom's pressure. On April 30, 2024, just 14 minutes before the deadline, Anexia created the exit from this pressing situation. Windbichler emphasized that this struggle for independence is not only important for anexia, but for the entire European cloud landscape. "Nobody can dictate us today," he said.

European sovereignty is crucial

Windbichler, however, warns that the entire EU is still extremely vulnerable, since the dependence on US cloud providers remains. This could have devastating effects in an emergency, as the systems could be turned off by political decisions in the United States. "If the cloud systems are switched off, we will all really become aware of the dependency of Europe," said Windbichler. He emphasizes that critical infrastructures that are indispensable for the functioning of society, such as cloud services, must not be neglected. The Anexia boss therefore calls for more measures to strengthen European sovereignty in the IT area. "Market-controlling software must be operated on European cloud providers without dependence on the software providers at fair prices," he explained to prevent a similar scenario in the future.

Due to the skillful handling of this crisis, Anexia has not only secured its own existence, but also set an important message for Europe: sovereignty and independence in digital space are essential to master future challenges. This clearly shows how critical the situation in the European digital sector is, while the dependence on US technologies continues, as the Kleine Zeitung . The call to strengthen the European Cloud infrastructure could not be more contemporary, as could also be the Krone emphasized.