Three EU Officials Not Sold on Europe's Homegrown Alternative to Microsoft Teams (politico.eu)
- Reference: 0186018586
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/10/04/061207/three-eu-officials-not-sold-on-europes-homegrown-alternative-to-microsoft-teams
- Source link: https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-microsoft-teams-alternative-bad-reviews-element-pro/
> The European Commission has rolled out an alternative to Microsoft Teams — but officials using it aren't impressed, with one describing the tool as "absolute shit."
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> The Commission introduced Element Pro over the summer as a "sovereign back-up to Teams," according to an internal staff memo seen by POLITICO. The platform is intended to provide a fallback for Commission communications if U.S.-based Teams becomes unavailable.... But three officials have questioned why the Commission needs the new system — and whether it works well enough to serve as a genuine backup. "I don't understand the added value here," one official wrote on an internal staff message board, seen by POLITICO. Another described the tool as "absolute shit." A third official said that, judging matters on how well Element Pro works compared to Teams, the U.S. would "instantly win the war" if it ever decided to switch off its technology...
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> The Commission hosts the Element system on its own infrastructure rather than relying on Microsoft's cloud. That gives the institution greater control over its communications data and systems... Element is a U.K. company whose software is used by governments and public-sector organizations in Europe... Element CEO Matthew Hodgson told POLITICO in a call using Element software that the Commission is still trialing it. "Obviously there are going to be some teething issues," he said, adding there will always be "cognitive dissonance" when switching to a new app, if only because the "buttons" are in a different place. He noted that the United Nations and NATO also use Element Pro.
The article adds that earlier this year, France announced millions of civil servants will switch to home-grown alternatives to American video-conferencing tools including Microsoft Teams and Zoom by 2027, while Austria's military also replaced Microsoft Office with the German-made LibreOffice last year.
[1] https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-microsoft-teams-alternative-bad-reviews-element-pro/
Slack... Hipchat... Zoom... (Score:2, Troll)
If Europe puts the money into an alternative to Teams, it should go somewhere after a few years. After all, we have seen other video and chat platforms become popular before despite the Teams integration in the Microsoft ecosystem. (Slack...Hipchat...Zoom...)
Market leaders are putting all of their money into AI instead of improving their products. Unless you are one of the ones spouting the mantra of our AI overlords that "we don't need humans anymore" while simultaneously brazenly stealing work while ign
Element Pro is not Open Source (Score:3)
Element Pro is not Open Source.
So the EU is swapping a shitty proprietary solution for another shitty proprietary solution.
And what will they do when the company that developed Element Pro is bought by an American company ?
Swap to another one ?!
Stupidity and corruption is deeply ingrained in the European Commission.
Re: (Score:2)
I call article shenanigans.
Element is a UK company. Which is not part of the EU. Why should the EU choose to use a non-European company, headquartered in a non-European country, with a non-European, non-compliant legal system?
The UK is already barred from offering unrestricted financial services in the EU, I expect communications services to be an area of concern.
Brexit is Brexit. The UK is out, and simply cannot be trusted with European communications backbones.
I may be willing to believe that there
Virtual online meetings are now a thing (Score:2)
You can never have too many meetings and now we can do it virtually /s
its bad (Score:2)
When I open teams, there is a big banner that appears over the window and I have to struggle to remember how to dismiss it. There is only a list of the last 20 or so people I have talked to, even though I do that in a day sometimes. Searching on text that appeared somewhere in a chat is an excercise in futility, and so is scrolling back more than a few days. Everything is laggy and slow and not up to navigating the thousands of contacts I not just need but am expected to. Fullscreen in meetings is not re
Not just a dupe (Score:4, Funny)
This version has a dumber headline, so it's like a whole new story! Three people didn't like it!
Sure but how many stars is that? (Score:2)
If they're rating it on a scale from "vibe-coded horse-crap" to "absolute shit", that could well be a positive review.
On par with MS Teams (Score:5, Funny)
If it's "absolute shit", then it's a drop-in replacement for MS Teams.
Re: (Score:2)
Came here to say this.
Re: On par with MS Teams (Score:2)
Congratulations to you both for repeating the same joke from the article yesterday.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm more interested to hear who are the "three officials". An anonymous opinion about an issue that involves Microsoft doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in its veracity, not to mention that politico EU is a magazine that thrives on ragebite and excessive dramatism about nothing.