Help me here

Why can’t a company in the EU make a secure video/voice chat app?

There’s are EU companies that make teams alternatives:

https://euroalternative.eu/alternatives/microsoft-teams

Even if those don’t work SAP, Dassault, etc… make massively complex software and services across multiple verticals and could trivially ship a competitor

Element’s topco may be UK based for now, but the vast majority of our business and footprint is in the EU - https://element.io/en/about. All but one of our mobile app team is in the EU for instance (and when we started, the UK was too :|)

Why reinvent the wheel when there are already open standards like Matrix or XMPP that can be adapted to your use case?

> Why can’t a company in the EU make a secure video/voice chat app?

What makes you think they can't?

Microsoft's corporate edge isn't merely the product, it's also an army of sales, entrenched corporate markets/clients, lock-in, etc.

You could have a better version of their product and still get eaten alive.

There is Wire with HQ in Berlin, Germany.

https://wire.com/en/

Jitsi

Formerly - skype

Matrix

The idea of the likes of SAP spinning up a new product quickly and painlessly seems like a joke.

The french government recently did: https://github.com/suitenumerique/meet

I mean German police is using Palantir.

There is nothing magic about Palantir, especially not about the subset of Palantir that the German police uses as we have stricter data privacy laws.

You might think that would be a strategic risk not worth taking especially with the US getting more hostile towards Europe but here we are.

Why? Honestly I don't have a good answer other than well the whole system is rotten, corruption, lobbyism, take your pick.

One major issue is system management:

Installing another app, such as Signal, on your personal computer is one thing. On 1,000 or 10,000 or 100,000 computers, installing it, configuring it, changing settings, updating it, backing it up, locking down settings from user changes (such as retention) - all that requires special tools to do it efficiently at scale. Without the management tools, no way that bit of IT can be used.

The most common tool by far is Microsoft's Active Directory and Group Policy, which has the best compatibility with Windows and with Microsoft applications, including Office. If AD/GP is already deployed, imagine the burden of deploying a second tool to your 1K/10K/100K computers, setting up the server, learning to use it ... you're not doing that for one application unless it's very valuable. The exception is a tool bundled with the application for its own management, but that's going to have to be efficient to deploy, learn, and use to be worthwhile.

Therefore, for many organizations, any application must be effectively managed by AD/GP, which requires the application's developer to create AD/GP management components.

Do Matrix, Signal, or any other application have system management tools?

Zoom came along with a securre video/voice chat, sure it's American, but it was by far the world leader

Microsoft then used its monopoly in office tools to push Teams to everyone

You can't compete with a trillion dollar company offering your product as a bundle your clients already pay for, even if your product is better. Even VC money runs out eventually